According to EPO’s president Benoit Battistelli, among the 2014 274174 patent applications, Chinese applicants ranked number 4 after the USA, Japan and Germany, an increase of 18.2 % vs. 2013. Among the granted 64.000 patents in 2014, the Chinese share was only 2 %. Most of the Chinese applications were in digital communication (Huawei and ZTE), most public applications came from CAS, Peking University and Tsinghua University
CAS news release, Feb. 27, 2015