ZTE retains top-2 position in world intellectual property organization patent table

SHENZHEN, CHINA: ZTE Corp. retained its top-2 ranking in the World Intellectual Property Organization's latest annual table of patent applicants, strengthening the company's position as one of the world's leading technology innovators.

With 2,309 filings under the Patent Cooperation Treaty ("PCT"), ZTE was No. 2 in WIPO's table of patent applicants in 2013, behind only Panasonic Corp. ZTE ranked No. 1 in both 2011 and 2012.

"ZTE's growing portfolio of intellectual property assets is providing strong support to the company's development of new technologies," said Guo Xiaoming, chief legal officer at ZTE. "PCT patents are the most valuable IP assets of a company. ZTE is committing tremendous resources to patent applications, as the company seeks to play a leading role in the global technology industry by shaping the development of essential underlying technologies."

According to WIPO, the number of patent applications exceeded 200,000 globally for the first time in 2013. China was among the top-3 countries in patent applications.

"ZTE has now built up strong positions in the development of key technologies such as operating systems, databases, mobile devices, applications, security solutions and semiconductors. For example, ZTE's self-developed 28 nanometer LTE multi-mode chipset is an industry-first in China, and has been qualified by China Mobile," Guo said.

ZTE has filed applications for more than 50,000 patents globally, with more than 16,000 granted. ZTE is a global leader with more than 800 essential patents on the standardization 4G LTE. ZTE will continue to strengthen its portfolio of patents to attain globally-leading positions in core areas such as smart terminals, optical networking, cloud computing, big data and 4G LTE, and invest in next-generation technologies such as 5G.

Such investments will be key to enhance ZTE's competitiveness and intellectual property capabilities to help the company cope with changes in the technology landscape and market environment.