7 April 2016, Shenzhen, China – ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet, is one of the top 3 companies submitting the most patent applications for the sixth consecutive year, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization’s latest annual table of patent applicants.  

With 2,155 filings under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (“PCT”), ZTE was No. 3 in WIPO’s table of patent applicants in 2015. ZTE is the only Chinese company to make the top 3 list for six years. ZTE ranked 1^st in 2011 and 2012; 2^nd in 2013, and 3^rd in 2014. 

ZTE’s industry-leading development of key technologies is made possible in part through continuous investment of 10% of the company income’s into Research & Development every year. This strengthens the company’s position as one of the world’s leading technology innovators and patent applicants. Over the past six years, ZTE has made a total investment of over RMB 50 Billion in R&D, with more than RMB 10 Billion invested in 2015.

The company has filed applications for more than 66,000 patents globally, with more than 24,000 granted. More than 90% of the patents owned by ZTE resulted from original inventions, including a high number of standard-essential patents and core patents adopted in the telecommunications industry globally, ranging from 5G/4G to cloud computing to big data. ZTE recently signed a 4G patent licensing agreement with Spanish company Teltronic, marking the company’s global leadership in the field of 4G LTE technology.

ZTE is also committed to leading-edge innovations in 5G mobile telecommunications. With more than 800 experts based in over 10 research centers across China, U.S. and Europe, the company invested over RMB 200 Million in R&D for 5G technologies. ZTE is the first company in the industry to launch Pre5G, deploying commercially available 5G technologies over a 4G network.  At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, ZTE won the Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough Award and Outstanding Overall Mobile Technology - The CTO’s Choice 2016 for its Pre5G Massive MIMO technology.

With 7,000 cloud computing and big data specialists, ZTE strives to offer comprehensive Point-to-Point/ Peer-to-Peer solutions. The company has more than 200 patents on cloud computing and continues to contribute to standard and open-sourced organisations all over the world.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, the number of international patent applications filed under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) were up by 1.7 percent, to 218,000, in 2015. PCT applications originating in China increased by 16.8 percent in 2015, making it the country with the fastest growth of acquired international patents.