Switzerland boasts the greatest density of inventors in the world

Switzerland is more innovative than ever before. According to the Patent Index 2024 by the European Patent Office (EPO), a total of 9,966 filings originated in Switzerland (2015: 7,116). With 1,140 patent applications per million inhabitants, Switzerland takes first place, while second-placed Sweden has less than half this number, at 472 patent applications per million of the population. Germany is ranked in sixth place with 300 applications.

In absolute terms, Germany is the European nation with the most patent applications. It is ranked in second place worldwide behind the USA. Switzerland is in third place in Europe and seventh globally. Positions three to six are occupied by Japan, China, South Korea and France.

In percentage terms, the two European top dogs in the shape of Germany (+0.4 percent) and France (+1.1 percent) recorded slight growth in 2024. Among the European countries with more than 5,000 patent registration per year, Switzerland and the UK registered the sharpest growth at +3.2 percent and + 3.1 percent respectively.

With a share of 10.5 percent, the highest proportion of patent applications in Switzerland came from the medical technology sector, followed by measurement technology (9.1 percent), consumer goods (8.3 percent), electrical machinery (8.2 percent), logistics (5.7 percent), pharma (4.7 percent), computers and organic chemistry (4.6 percent in each case), and biotechnology (4.3 percent).

Roche was the company with the highest number of patent applications (754) in Switzerland, in addition to being ranked in eighth place in Europe and 24th globally. In second place was ABB, ahead of Japan Tobacco, Philip Morris and Nestlé. In Europe, Siemens registered the most patent applications (1,830), which is enough for it to be ranked sixth in global terms behind Samsung (5,107), Huawei (4,322), LG (3,623), Qualcomm (3,015) and RTX (2,061).