Bulgaria's patent activity declines significantly in 2015: report

The Patent Office of Bulgaria registered a mere 34 patents of Bulgarian inventors in 2015, a 43-percent drop year-on-year, a report said here on Wednesday.

According to the annual report Innovation BG, prepared by the Applied Research and Communications Fund, 34 patents included 15 from individuals, 11 from the business sector, seven from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and one from a higher school.

Meanwhile, the number of patent applications submitted to the European Patent Office (EPO) by Bulgarian patent applicants has been growing after 2007 to reach 6.55 applications per one million people in 2014, the report said.

"However, despite the upward trend, Bulgaria remains at one of the last places in the European Union (EU) by this indicator (before Croatia and Romania), far below the average EU level of 111.59 applications and far behind the European innovation leaders which annually submit from 250 to 350 patent applications per one million," the report said. Endit