The last available figures, referring to 1999, indicate that the European patent office received 45.000 patent applications, coming from 15 countries of the Union. 

Compared to 1990, this figure represents an increase of 40%. In Europe, the greatest number of applications were presented by Germany (43,6%), followed by France (14,9%), the United Kingdom (12,3%) and Italy (7,5%). The other countries percentages are much lower, with a minimum for Portugal (0,07%).

Relating these figures witrh the active population of each country, we can see that the applications presented by Germany were 493 per million of active people, but not very removed from this figure were Sweden (478) and Finland (455). The lowest rates were recorded in Spain (43), Greece (15) and Portugal (6).

This latter country jumps to the highest place if we consider the increase of applications compared to 1990 (+20,8%), as a witness of the relevant efforts made to develop innovative activities. In this chart they are followed by Spain (+14,5%), Finland (+13%), Ireland (+12,8%) and Greece (+12,5%).

December.2001