Thuringia stands out as a region of successful inventors and innovators: last year, it ranked first among eastern German states in terms of patent applications per capita. As reported by the German Patent and Trademark Office in Munich, Thuringia outperformed some western German states as well.
Overall, Thuringia had 24 patent applications per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023. The state clearly came out ahead of its neighbor Saxony, which had 13 applications. The gap to other eastern German states was even greater, where patent applications remained in the single digits. Thuringia also led western German states such as Rhineland-Palatinate and Schleswig-Holstein, which recorded 15 and 13 applications per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively. Experts attribute Thuringia’s remarkable performance to its decades-long track record of deep expertise and potential in the business and technology sectors of optics and medical technology. All told, companies, research institutions, and individual inventors filed 38,469 patents nationwide in 2023, an increase of 3.4 percent on the previous year.
