Patent applicants and applications; company size applicant, 2000-2010

This table contains data on the number of patent applicants and applications from the Netherlands to the European Patent Office (EPO) and at NL Patent Centre, a division of Agency NL (NLOC). Patents may be granted to companies, universities, institutions, individuals or other entities as long as the invention meets the conditions for patentability.To qualify for a patent, an invention must be new, inventive and receptive to industrial application. Whether an invention meets these criteria is assessed by a patent office such as the EPO or the NLOC. The patent office will eventually grant or reject the application. The data are broken down by company size of the company that submitted the application. The figures indicate which size classes of companies in Dutch society are (most) innovative. This table has been discontinued. Data available from 2000 to 2010. Status of the figures: The data until 2009 is final. The 2010 data is provisional. As this table has been discontinued, the data will no longer be definitive. Changes as of 30 October 2015: None, this table has been discontinued. When are new figures coming? No longer applicable.