Transnational patent applications are patent applications filed at the European Patent Office for European countries or as Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications for non-European countries. Applicants choose to file a transnational patent application if the invention is to be exploited in different national markets. For patent statistics and the related indicators, two advantages result from the use of data from the international offices (European Patent Office, EPO, and World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO). On the one hand, the transnationally filed patents are of greater relevance. On the other hand, comparability between national economies is better on this basis than based on national patent data.

The total number of annual transnational patent applications in the countries under consideration almost tripled in the period from 1997 to 2020. In 2020, however, Germany recorded its lowest rate since 2003 with 27,338 patent applications. Japan and the European peer countries also recorded fewer patent applications in 2020 than in 2019. In contrast, China and South Korea remained on the same positive growth path as in previous years. China overtook the USA for the first time in 2019 and consolidated its leading position in 2020.