Patent applications for air taxis up 'significantly' in Germany: trademark office

The number of patents granted in Germany for inventions related to urban air mobility increased significantly in 2020, the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) said on Wednesday.

Including filings with the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), 583 patents were published for air taxis in Germany, 29 percent more than in 2019, the DPMA said.

"A few years ago, air taxis were not taken very seriously by many," DPMA President Cornelia Rudloff-Schaeffer said, adding that the considerable amount of venture capital pumped into this segment and the rapid pace of innovation showed that this was an "important future market."

In the past five years, more than 40 percent of urban air mobility patents registered in Germany came from U.S. companies. German firms accounted for less than 17 percent, according to the the DPMA.

"At first glance, American companies play a dominant role in urban air mobility," Rudloff-Schaeffer said, but Germany was "also promisingly positioned to tap into this new market."

Last year, the number of air taxi patents filed by German companies more than doubled year-on-year and reached 120.