According to the annual report of the European Patent Office in 2017, the number of patent applications filed by Polish inventors, companies and scientific institutes increased by 14 percent. Poles submitted 469 patent applications. In terms of the growth rate of applications, Poland ranks among the European leaders.

In the Polish ranking of patent leaders run by the European Patent Office, the Synthos company with 12 patent applications came first. Unlike in other European countries, Polish patents in 2017 were provided by universities and research institutes. As many as four of the seven largest applicants are universities or research institutes. The second most active Polish applicant (7 applications) was the Jagiellonian University, then the University of Gdańsk, the Flaris aircraft manufacturer and the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (6 applications) and the Warsaw Medical University (5 notifications).