Table 3.

Top five applicant countries in 12 countries/regions’ patent offices based on the number of nanotechnology patent applications from 1991 to 2008

No.	Patent office/repository (no. of applications from all countries)	Rank	Applicant country	Number of nanotechnology patent applications (1991–2008)	2000	2008
1	USA (19,665)	1	USA	12,606	285	2,288
		2	Japan	1,866	42	308
		3	South Korea	1,272	6	343
		4	Germany	1,048	23	168
		5	Taiwan	839	7	175
2	PRC (18,438)	1	PRC	16,348	85	4,409
		2	USA	805	3	260
		3	South Korea	327	5	80
		4	Japan	301	2	64
		5	Germany	145	3	43
3	South Korea (5,963)	1	South Korea	4,087	41	967
		2	USA	461	15	151
		3	PRC	145	1	53
		4	Japan	138	4	39
		5	Germany	119	0	42
4	Canada (1,539)	1	USA	825	18	156
		2	Canada	192	4	28
		3	Germany	124	7	18
		4	France	57	6	7
		5	Japan	53	2	5
5	Taiwan (1,363)a	1	Taiwan	906	3	165
		2	USA	224	17	26
		3	Japan	113	3	17
		4	Germany	35	3	6
		5	South Korea	32	2	10
6	Germany (1,312)	1	Germany	1,182	56	124
		2	Taiwan	21	1	1
		3	USA	20	1	3
		4	South Korea	16	2	2
		5	Japan	15	0	1
7	Russian Federation (859)	1	Russian Federation	711	41	147
		2	USA	37	1	3
		3	Japan	17	0	3
		3	Germany	17	1	1
		5	France	16	0	2
8	Mexico (471)	1	USA	277	0	53
		2	Germany	30	0	5
		3	Mexico	28	0	4
		4	France	26	0	3
		5	Switzerland	20	0	2
9	UK (412)	1	UK	162	5	27
		2	USA	109	8	15
		3	Germany	25	0	7
		4	Japan	20	0	3
		5	South Korea	19	1	5
10	France (390)	1	France	358	6	37
		2	Belgium	6	0	2
		2	Japan	6	0	0
		4	Taiwan	5	0	0
		4	USA	5	2	0
11	Brazil (315)	1	Brazil	116	0	42
		2	USA	99	0	32
		3	Germany	25	0	8
		4	Switzerland	21	0	4
		5	France	15	0	5
12	Ukraine (243)	1	Ukraine	221	0	78
		2	Switzerland	4	0	3
		3	Japan	2	0	0
		4	Switzerland	1	0	0
		4	USA	1	0	0

^aAs noted previously, data from 2007 was used for Taiwan’s patent office, rather than 2008