Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

Transfer

Shareholdings and spin-offs

At the reporting date, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft held equity investments in a total of 83 companies operating in a diverse range of sectors. The transfer of technology to industry formed the focus of activities at 53 of the companies in the investment portfolio, while a further 24 equity investments were of a strategic nature. Equity investments also include 6 affiliated companies. In 2023, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft invested a total of €7.1 million in the acquisition of equity interests in shareholdings and divested its shares in 6 companies. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft added one company to its investment portfolio. Furthermore, 6 others that had previously been held as current marketable securities were reclassified to noncurrent assets. The total carrying amount of shareholdings (including shares in affiliated companies) increased to €31.5 million (previous year: €9.2 million). The significant increase in the carrying amount was driven primarily by the reclassification of the 6 companies from current assets, as their carrying amount at the end of 2023 was €21.8 million. Income from the divestiture of shareholdings came to €7.1 million.

Spin-offs are an integral part of Fraunhofer’s strategy for exploiting its industrial property rights. The Fraunhofer Venture department generally supports spin-off founders as they prepare to launch their new business. In individual cases, Fraunhofer takes a minority share in the spin-off under company law as part of its technology transfer activities. In 2023, Fraunhofer Venture provided support to 71 new spin-off
projects; 23 new spin-offs were established. Fraunhofer has set itself the goal of increasing not only the number of spin-offs but also their proportional contribution to overall industrial revenue. Fraunhofer's innovation hub AHEAD offers a package of targeted measures and programs to help achieve this.

Patent applications claiming rights of priority 2019 - 2023

Exploitation of intellectual property rights

The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft remains the leader among German research institutions in terms of its annual number of invention disclosures and new patent applications. After the decrease seen in the previous two years, the number of invention disclosures rose again in 2023 to stand at 506 inventions. The number of patent applications claiming rights of priority was also up year over year, at 406. The lower number of new applications in 2021 and 2022 is having a delayed effect on IP inventory.

The Fraunhofer portfolio of active patent families, each of which comprises all intellectual property rights in
different countries, decreased year on year to stand at 7,068. General price increases have also caused the institutes to focus even more on the cost aspect of intellectual property rights, so they are clearing their portfolios of older IP rights in some cases. The general strategy of the Fraunhofer institutes remains to secure only valuable inventions permanently under patent law. To guarantee ongoing exploitation of intellectual property rights, Fraunhofer is continuing its efforts to group patents into portfolios that are then offered to selected companies, licensed or, in some cases, sold.

Commercial exploitation of intellectual property (IP) rights

As a rule, Fraunhofer generates revenue from the commercial exploitation of intellectual property (IP) rights by way of license fees. In addition, IP can also be contributed to patent pools or exploited through the sale of IP. The most successful of these pools consist of patents for audio and video encoding. In conjunction with other parties from different countries that hold patents that are relevant to standards, Fraunhofer uses various patent pools to issue licenses on a worldwide basis. The income from these pools is reinvested in pre-competitive research, thus helping strengthen Germany’s position as a research hub for the long term. In 2023, Fraunhofer concluded 212 new IP licensing or sale agreements, bringing the total number of active agreements at the end of 2023 to 2,989. Revenue from the licensing and sale of IP amounted to approximately €158 million.

Related Links: