These figures appear in the Annual Statistics Report from the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI), released by the Ministry of Justice, which indicates a broad-based rise in industrial property indicators, covering national patents, European patents, and trademark registrations.

A total of 1,170 national patent applications for inventions were submitted in 2025, representing a 22.9% increase over the 952 submitted the previous year.

The University of Coimbra ranked first in terms of the volume of applications filed, in a statistical report that also reveals that 34% of the applications involved female inventors, and that the Northern region led the geographical distribution, accounting for 37% of national filings, followed by Greater Lisbon (26%) and the Central region (22%).

International patents

Internationally, European patent applications originating in Portugal rose by 6.1%, reaching 368 filings (compared to 347 validated in 2024).

Of this total, 122 applications utilised the European patent system with unitary effect, an 18.4% year-on-year increase, a simplified mechanism that extends legal protection for the invention to 18 European Union Member States.

Trademarks, logos, and distinctive commercial signs remained the most sought-after type of industrial property in the country, totalling 23,229 applications in 2025 (a 7.9% increase over the previous year).

This volume places Portugal among European countries with the highest ratios of trademark applications per million inhabitants, surpassing Spain, France, and Germany.

The largest share of these applications was concentrated in the “Education, Training, Entertainment, and Sports and Cultural Activities” sector, with companies and corporate entities accounting for 51.3% of the requests and individual applicants for the remaining 48.7%.