By Micaela Costa Ferreira
Evolution in Furniture Patent applications by portuguese companies and inventors.
The charts above demonstrate a small study regarding the evolution of the furniture patent applications by portuguese inventors. The purpose was to raise awareness of the technological embeddness in traditionally low-tech products. The furniture sector has a strong position in Portugal and, in the last decade, was considered decadent by many economists. This figures show us a different reality.
The main IPC class used to extract furniture technological invention was A47 (except A47G, A47J, A47K and A47L, which are not directly furniture but domestic appliances or articles).
First figure: Patent activity in the last 10 years. We can observe a growth in patent activity in the first 5 years culminating in 2010. Despite the low activity in 2011, the years 2012 and 2013 were also positively active.
Second Figure: The technological map of the patent activity shows us that the main area is still human needs but with also the appearance of new technologies, electricity, physics and chemistry.
Third Figure: An interesting figure that compares the number of patent applications with the years and applicants. The recent main applicants are Aspilusa, an home appliances company specialized in vacuum systems and Novadelta, the portuguese coffee mogul that recently developed an B2B and B2C coffee system in capsules (Delta Q) to compete with Nespresso and other similar brands.
In the past 20 years we have observed an interesting patent activity in the furniture and home appliances cluster. This figures shows us that a rather traditional, with low technological intensity activities is changing and embedding new and high-end technology to reinvent itself.
Patent Data worked with patentInspiration tools