JPO Recently Released Top 10 List of Companies Receiving Patents in 2016

The Japan Patent Office recently released a top 10 ranking of companies who registered patents in Japan last year. This year Cannon registered the highest number of patents with approximately 4,100 patents. Toyota Motor who previously held the number one ranking dropped down to fourth place.

The results are as follows:
1.    Cannon 4,095
2.    Panasonic 4,046
3.    Mitsubishi Electric 4,042
4.    Toyota Motor 3,717
5.    Fujitsu 2,399
6.    DENSO 2,374
7.    Seiko Epson 2,281
8.    Honda 2,144
9.    Ricoh 2,142
10.  JFE Steel 1,787

The electronic and automobile industries account for all of the top 10 companies. Moreover, the top 30 companies in the list accounted for about one quarter of all patents registered last year.
Also the number of trademark applications filed hit a record high last year. According to the annual report, the number of domestic trademark applications filed in 2016 exceeded 140,000. In particular, the number of applications filed by small and medium sized enterprises has been increasing.