In 2007, Bosch researchers and developers registered more patents than ever before. The number of first-filed patents rose by seven percent to a total of 3,281. This adds up to an average of 14 developments submitted to the patent offices for first filing every working day. However, as not every innovation is automatically registered as a patent at Bosch, the number of inventions registered within the company in 2007 actually rose by eight percent, to 6,560. The only Bosch developments that are filed are those that the company feels are sufficiently significant.
In total, the number of patents, patent registrations, and utility models held by the Bosch Group amounts to around 77,000. "These figures are impressive evidence of the innovative strength of the Bosch Group", said Dr Siegfried Dais, whose responsibilities as deputy chairman of the board of management includes R&D.
In the past year, Bosch increased its expenditure on R&D by nine percent to 3.6 billion euros. Investment in this field accounted for just under eight percent of the company's sales of roughly 46 billion euros. Approximately 30,000 employees work in R&D worldwide, with most of them being employed in Germany.