INESC TEC on the podium of national applicants for European patents yet again

Data from the latest annual report published by the European Patent Office (EPO) places INESC TEC in the national top 10 of institutions with the most patent applications registered. In 2024, INESC TEC submitted six European patent applications, five of which as the first holder.

In addition to these six registrations, INESC TEC also succeeded in securing the grant of three European patents last year.

The registered inventions focus on precision agriculture, smart telecommunications, components for underwater vehicles, and the manufacturing of equipment with potential applications in disease diagnosis or pollutant detection.

In 2024, INESC TEC recorded the highest number of European patent applications in the technological field of Instrumentation, which included: manufacturing techniques for microfluidic equipment with optical sensors, used to create devices with applications like disease diagnosis; the use of very specific molecules for detecting molecular targets that can assist both in disease diagnosis and in detecting pollutants at low concentrations; and technology applied to precision agriculture, which enables the evaluation of ripeness, early disease detection, and the quality of fruits and seeds in a non-invasive manner.

According to Daniel Vasconcelos, head of the Institute’s Technology Licensing Office, “once again, the EPO data present INESC TEC as one of the organisations with the most consistent presence in this ranking, which validates the strategy we have followed in the management of the intellectual property portfolio aimed at internationalisation and valorisation of the knowledge generated”. It’s worth mentioning that INESC TEC has been part of this national top 10 since 2017.

Despite the worldwide drop in patent registration, there was a 4.8% increase in applications at national level. The national top 10 is composed mainly of institutions related to academia, like INESC TEC, but also of private companies, such as NOS Inovação (leader of the ranking) or Altice Labs. The University of Porto (with whom INESC TEC has five patents registered in co-ownership) takes the third spot.