Which EU countries file the most EU trademarks?

Last year (2021) the EU trademark office EUIPO received more than 160 000 trademark applications. The majority of these, almost 110 000 applications, came from EU-based applicants.

German applicants filed the most applications from any EU country, with more than 27 000 applications. The fewest applications came from Latvia, with only 343 applications in 2021. In other words, German applicants file more applications every 3 days than Latvian applicants in the course of the whole year.

Of course, this comparison is not fair because Germany has a far larger population and economy than Latvia. To get a more realistic understanding of the level of EU trademark applications coming from each EU member state, it is useful to consider the size of the population and/or the size of the economy. Using Germany and Latvia again as examples, in 2021 there were 10,4 EU trademark applications from Latvia for every billion EUR of GDP. The equivalent figure for Germany was merely 7,7 applications. In other words, Latvians filed 35% more EU trademark applications proportionate to their economy than Germans.

If the number of applications is adjusted to the size of the economy, here’s what the rankings look like.

Most EU trademark applications per 1 billion EUR of GDP:

1. Malta 62,1 applications
2. Cyprus 48,8
3. Estonia 29,8
4. Lithuania 18,7
5. Bulgaria 17,7
6. Luxembourg 14,2
7. Austria 11,4
8. Poland 10,9
9. Slovenia 10,8
10. Portugal 10,6
11. Latvia 10,4
12. Spain 9,3
13. Greece 8,4
14. Italy 8,4
15. Czechia 8,3
16. Sweden 8,1
17. Germany 7,7
18. Finland 7,3
19. Denmark 7,1
20. Slovakia 7,0
21. Netherlands 7,0
22. Croatia 6,1
23. Romania 6,1
24. Hungary 5,9
25. Belgium 5,9
26. Ireland 4,0
27. France 3,9

The EU average of all states is 13,2 applications per 1 billion EUR of GDP. The median figure is 8,4 applications.

If the number of applications is adjusted to the size of the population, the ranking is slightly different.

Most EU trademark applications per 100 000 inhabitants:

1. Malta 175,0 applications
2. Luxembourg 163,7
3. Cyprus 133,4
4. Estonia 68,8
5. Austria 51,5
6. Sweden 41,5
7. Denmark 40,6
8. Lithuania 37,1
9. Netherlands 34,4
10. Finland 33,3
11. Ireland 33,3
12. Germany 33,2
13. Slovenia 26,7
14. Belgium 26,0
15. Italy 25,2
16. Spain 23,7
17. Portugal 21,7
18. Czechia 18,5
19. Latvia 18,1
20. Bulgaria 17,3
21. Poland 16,5
22. Greece 14,4
23. France 14,2
24. Slovakia 12,4
25. Hungary 9,4
26. Croatia 8,7
27. Romania 7,6

Overall rankings – the EU trademark index

Regardless of whether the relevant metric is the size of the population or the size of the economy, Malta is the country where most EU trademark applications originate from.

It’s a matter of taste on how to weigh these different metrics. If they are given the same importance, and points are given to countries based on their ranking, it’s possible to get a balanced overview of the EU trademark intensity of each country.

Another question is what kind of scale to use, and how to award ranking points. The result might vary depending on what the scale is and how to distribute points. Many sports award points for 30 best finishers, and since the EU has 27 member states, that’s close enough. Using the FIS Alpine World Cup point system (100 points for the winner, 4 points for the 27th), here’s the ranking of all EU countries in terms of their trademark intensity adjusted to the population and the economy size:

Rank	Country	Rank population	Rank economy	Points
1.	Malta	1	1	200
2.	Cyprus	3	2	140
3.	Luxembourg	2	6	120
4.	Estonia	4	3	110
5.	Lithuania	8	4	82
6.	Austria	5	7	81
7.	Bulgaria	20	5	56
8.	Sweden	6	16	55
9.	Slovenia	13	9	49
10.	Denmark	7	19	48
11.	Poland	21	8	42
12.	Portugal	17	10	40
13.	Netherlands	9	21	39
14.	Finland	10	18	39
15.	Spain	16	12	37
16.	Germany	12	17	36
17.	Latvia	19	11	36
18.	Italy	15	14	34
19.	Ireland	11	26	29
20.	Czechia	18	15	29
21.	Greece	22	13	29
22.	Belgium	14	25	24
23.	Slovakia	24	20	18
24.	Croatia	26	22	14
25.	Hungary	25	24	13
26.	France	23	27	12
27.	Romania	27	23	12