LG Again Tops Australian Patent Filings in 2023, as Most of the ‘Usual Suspects’ Return

Over the past five years (i.e. since 2019) Korea’s LG Electronics Inc and China’s Huawei Technologies Ltd have consistently placed in the top five applicants for Australian patents.  Indeed, for the past four years they were in the leading three.  In 2021, Huawei came out on top with LG a close second.  In 2022, LG took top place, with IBM appearing from nowhere to push Huawei back into third.  And in 2023, LG has once again grabbed the top spot, with Huawei not too far behind, and IBM easing up on its Australian filing frenzy to slip back into equal 14^th position with a ‘mere’ 100 applications.

Notwithstanding Asian companies holding the top two positions, US applicants dominated to top 30 filers, taking up 20 spots including six of the top 10.  This is no great surprise.  As the numbers in my previous article show, US residents filed 44% of all Australian patent applications in 2023, despite a 6% decline in US-originating filings.  While some applicants moved up or down the rankings, the overall make-up of the top 30 was similar to the previous year, with only eight exits/entries among the lower positions.  Furthermore, a number of the applicants entering the table are not unfamiliar names, having appeared previously before dropping out temporarily.

Once again, the leading Australian-based applicant was Aristocrat Technologies Australia Pty Ltd with 73 applications, followed by the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) with 54 applications – both slightly up on the previous year’s numbers.  Yet again the top New Zealand applicant was Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Ltd which, with 107 applications, comfortably out-filed the leading Australians.

Read on for a look at the numbers in more detail.

Top Patent Applicants

The table below lists the ‘top 30’ applicants for Australian standard patents, from all countries of origin.  Also shown is each applicant’s ranking in last year’s top 30, colour-coded in green to indicate a rise in ranking, in blue to indicate ‘no change’, and in red for a fall in the rankings.

Rank	2022	Applicant Name	Country	Filings
1	1	LG ELECTRONICS INC	KR	196
2	3	HUAWEI TECH LTD	CN	180
3	4	BECTON DICKINSON & CO	US	149
4	9	CATERPILLAR INC	US	139
5	6	SOCIETE DES PRODUITS NESTLE SA	CH	135
6	5	APPLE INC	US	130
7	=29	NICOVENTURES TRADING LTD	GB	128
8	=10	HALLIBURTON ENERGY SERVICES INC	US	121
=9	8	AMGEN INC	US	119
=9	7	REGENERON PHARMACEUTICALS INC	US	119
11	15	BOSTON SCIENTIFIC SCIMED INC	US	108
=12	=10	FISHER & PAYKEL HEALTHCARE LTD	NZ	107
=12	14	ILLUMINA INC	US	107
=14	2	IBM CORPORATION	US	100
=14	=22	TECHTRONIC CORDLESS GP	US	100
16	13	F HOFFMANN LA ROCHE AG	CH	93
17	=17	DEERE & CO	US	87
18	-	TENCENT AMERICA LLC	US	84
19	12	UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA	US	83
20	28	ANGEL GROUP LTD	JP	81
21	-	ELI LILLY & CO	US	77
22	-	ARISTOCRAT TECH INC	US	76
=23	25	ARISTOCRAT TECH AUSTRALIA PTY LTD	AU	73
=23	27	BASF SE	DE	73
=25	-	BYD CO LTD	CN	72
=25	-	SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS LTD	KR	72
=27	26	CAREFUSION 303 INC	US	71
=27	=29	GENENTECH INC	US	71
29	-	KIMBERLY CLARK WORLDWIDE INC	US	69
=30	-	HAIER SMART HOME LTD	CN	65
=30	-	JANSSEN BIOTECH INC	US	65
=30	=17	UNITED STATES OF AMERICA	US	65

While Korea’s LG Electronics is once again at the top of the table, the number of applications that it filed fell significantly, from 283 in 2022 to 196 in 2023.  Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei – whose gear was banned from Australia’s telecommunications networks in 2018 on national security grounds – filed 180 applications in 2023, which was just two fewer than the previous year, bringing it up to close second place.

Last year’s surprise second place holder, IBM Corporation, fell to equal 14^th place in this year’s ranking, filing ‘only’ 100 applications.  However, as I noted last year, IBM had focussed on being the leading US patent recipient, and had largely ignored Australia as a filing destination for three decades since the early 1990s, and so this continues to reflect a considerable uplift in its Australian filings.  Interestingly, IBM received the fourth highest (equal with Qualcomm Inc) number of Australian patent grants in 2023, at 96, behind LG (209), Huawei (189) and Apple (133).  This positions IBM well ahead, in granted patents, of a number of the higher-placed applicants in the above table, most of which have filed many more applications in recent years.  This suggests a particular focus on securing granted patents from those applications IBM has elected to file in Australia (or, conversely, avoiding the expense of filing speculative or low-value applications).  Indeed, 31% of all applications filed by IBM between the beginning of 2020 and the end of 2023 have already resulted in granted patents, which is well ahead of the overall average of just 18% for all applications filed over this period.  In summary, IBM appears to be filing strategically in Australia, and is not wasting money on applications that it does not intend to prosecute to grant.

A notable upward mover within the top 30 is Nicoventures Trading, which is a company established by British American Tobacco ‘to provide adult smokers with a range of alternative products’ as part of its ‘approach to tobacco harm reduction’ – which is, in this case, tobacco company greenwashing language for vaping.  While 128 patent applications in a year seems like a lot to protect a product that is prohibited in Australia from 1 March 2024 (except with a medical prescription), tobacco companies are eternal optimists.  Or perhaps Nicoventures plans to put its Australian portfolio to good use by suing the warring organised crime gangs running the nicotine black market for patent infringement.

Once again, the only Australian applicant in the top 30 was casino gaming technology developer Aristocrat Technologies Australia.  The related US-based entity Aristocrat Technologies Inc filed three more applications in 2023 than its Australian counterpart.  None of these were joint applications, so if the filings of both entities were combined the notional ‘Aristocrat Group’ would place equal fourth, alongside medical device manufacturer Becton Dickinson.

There has been some ‘churn’ of applicants in and out of the lower third of the top 30, however this is not unusual.  Year-to-year fluctuations of a few tens of applications are typical of many leading filers in Australia, and so relatively large movements up and down the table are common among companies that regularly file fewer than 100 applications per year.  In 2023, for example, there were 40 applicants that filed between 45 and 75 applications, all of which are names that we might see – and, indeed, in most cases have seen – in the top 30 in their higher-filing years.  Kimberly Clark, Samsung Electronics and Eli Lilly are all notable re-entrants that have featured in the top 30 in recent years.  The most significant new entrant is Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD which, having filed just seven applications in 2022, leapt into the table with ten times as may applications in 2023.  Coincidentally – or perhaps not – BYD beat out Tesla to become the best selling EV brand in Australia for the month of January 2024.

Leading Australian-Resident Applicants

The following table lists the ‘top 20’ Australian-resident applicants, again using the green/blue/red colour-coding for upward, static and downward movements in the rankings.  Yet again, Aristocrat tops the table as the only Australian applicant to appear on the previous table of overall leaders.  Australian ‘unicorn’ Canva, in just its third year in the top 20, has more than doubled its filing numbers, moving up to number three in the rankings.  As always, universities and public research institutions are prominent among Australian filers, with CSIRO once again placing second, with 54 filings.  However, two of Australia’s most prominent research universities, Monash and Melbourne, slipped down in the rankings in 2023.

Rank	2022	Applicant Name	Filings
1	1	ARISTOCRAT TECH AUSTRALIA PTY LTD	73
2	2	CSIRO	54
3	=5	CANVA PTY LTD	48
4	3	THANH TRI LAM	42
=5	11	BREVILLE PTY LTD	22
=5	=5	RESMED PTY LTD	22
7	7	NEWSOUTH INNOVATIONS PTY LTD	21
8	4	MONASH UNIVERSITY	20
9	12	UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND	17
10	=13	UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY	15
=11	18	AGRICULTURE VICTORIA SERVICES PTY LTD	14
=11	=13	ROYAL MELBOURNE INSTITUTE OF TECH	14
=13	=16	TECHNOLOGICAL RESOURCES PTY LTD	10
=13	-	BLUESCOPE STEEL LTD	10
=15	=16	JULIANNE MARY CRIPPS CLARK	9
=15	8	UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE	9
=15	-	SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC AUSTRALIA PTY LTD	9
=18	-	NI KOMPANY PTY LTD	8
=18	-	SCHENCK PROCESS AUSTRALIA PTY LTD	8
=18	-	UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA	8
=18	-	TRENT WILLIAM SLENNETT-ROBERTS	8

Although there are only three applicants in the top 20 that are ranked lower in 2023 than in 2022, there are a further six – Globaltech Pty Ltd, Griffith University, Macquarie University, Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Ntahlmic Holding Pty Ltd and Xard Group Pty Ltd – that dropped out of the table altogether, to be replaced by new entrants.  Again, it is not surprising to see a fair amount of ‘churn’ in the lower part of the table, considering that a mere eight applications is sufficient to make the cut.  (Last year it was nine, so there has been minimal change in this regard.)

Top Provisional Applicants

To finish up, the table below lists the ‘top 25’ filers of provisional applications in 2023.  While almost all provisional applicants are Australian, there is a handful of exceptions among the leading filers.  These include four Fijian residents who are co-applicants on 16 Australian provisional applications, despite the fact that Fiji has its own intellectual property system and Patent Office, and patent laws that provide for the filing of provisional applications.  Singaporean ResMed Asia Pte Ltd and US-based Illinois Toolworks Inc are both companies with an Australian presence.  Indeed, the Australian entity ResMed Pty Ltd was the second most prolific filer of provisional applications in 2023 and, if filings from the two RedMed entities were combined they would exceed those of top placed CSIRO.

Again, universities and public research institutions feature strongly among provisional filers.  Notably, while eye care R&D house Nthalmic fell out of the ‘top 20’ for non-provisional applications in 2023 (see above), it almost doubled its provisional filings compared to 2022, which may bode well for a return in future years.

Rank	2022	Applicant Name	Country	Filings
1	1	CSIRO	AU	55
2	3	RESMED PTY LTD	AU	45
3	4	UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY	AU	44
4	2	NEWSOUTH INNOVATIONS PTY LTD	AU	42
5	6	UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND	AU	34
6	5	UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE	AU	30
=7	=14	ANTHONY JOHN SCOLARO	AU	25
=7	8	MONASH UNIVERSITY	AU	25
9	=23	NTHALMIC HOLDING PTY LTD	AU	21
10	=12	UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE	AU	20
11	=23	MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY	AU	17
=12	-	ROHINI RAJANI DEVI	FJ	16
=12	-	RAED AIAZ HAMID	FJ	16
=12	-	AIAZ JUNIOR HAMID	FJ	16
=12	-	AARYAN ASSAD HAMID	FJ	16
16	-	MORSE MICRO PTY LTD	AU	15
17	=12	THANH TRI LAM	AU	14
18	-	RESMED ASIA PTE LTD	SG	13
19	-	HYSENTIAL PTY LTD	AU	12
19	=14	AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY	AU	12
19	-	ILLINOIS TOOL WORKS INC	US	12
=22	-	AHARON ARAKEL	AU	11
=22	-	PACT RENEWABLES PTY LTD	AU	11
=22	-	ICON23 PTY LTD	AU	11
=22	-	CI PTY LTD	AU	11
=22	11	BREVILLE PTY LTD	AU	11

Tags: Annual patent data, Australia, Patent analytics