Manufacturers of electronic cigarettes are now engaged in a real race on a global scale to design and appropriate new variations of a technology whose spinoffs already amount to billions of euros.
Analysis of Thomson Reuters data shows that around 650 electronic cigarette-related patents have been filed since the start of the year, up from more than 500 last year, 220 in 2012 and just eight in 2005.
China, which has more than 300 million smokers, is in the lead with 64% of the more than 2.000 patents listed in total by Thomson Reuters, both in the development and the manufacture of these products, a market now estimated at 3,5, $ 2,82 billion (XNUMX billion euros).
Behind the People's Republic are the United States, with 14% of patents, and South Korea with 9%.
The multinational tobacco companies are trying not to be left behind in this field which has partly destabilized their historical activities: the British group Imperial Tobacco bought last year for 75 million dollars all the patents held by Hon Lik, a Chinese medical researcher credited with inventing the electronic cigarette in 2003.
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Source: http://www.capital.fr/
