Europe leading the patent race on autonomous driving

Three CARTRE project partners are leading the global race towards autonomous driving, as reported by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research this week. In a short paper, the institute collated the patents on automated driving, which are held by several companies. Using data from the World Intellectual Property Organisation, the researchers found out that CARTRE partner Bosch is leading the race. Bosch alone has almost triple the amount of patents registered than Google, a prominent leader in automated driving, as reported recently by The Atlantic. CARTRE consortium members Continental and BMW equally feature in the top 10 list prepared by the institute, as does CARTRE associated partner Volkswagen. Tesla, another US-based disruptor in the field is missing from the list altogether. The data, collected between 2010 and 2017, indicates the central role that Europe can play in the race to autonomous driving.