**Acknowledgements**

cases) in the second section, 4th place (325 cases) in the third section, and 4th place (429 cases)

**Ranking MBR Water treatment Desalination Ion exchange**

7 Italy 288 Canada 149 United

**Table 5.** Papers application country by each technology (past 10 years).

Kingdom

 China 1998 China 812 China 1015 United States 1032 United States 921 United States 751 United States 970 China 1255 Spain 481 South Korea 223 South Korea 453 South Korea 429 Australia 405 India 219 Australia 358 India 360 India 364 Australia 205 India 266 Japan 294 South Korea 350 Spain 166 Spain 263 Germany 249

8 Canada 273 Germany 136 Germany 191 France 225

11 Japan 203 France 120 France 151 Italy 141 12 France 185 Netherlands 112 Canada 143 Australia 121 13 Netherlands 154 Italy 107 Italy 140 Netherlands 109

**Country Number Country Number Country Number Country Number**

Kingdom

217 Japan 134 Japan 184 United

199 Canada 236

Kingdom

130 Netherlands 157 Spain 180

208

The purpose of this review is to examine the progress of research on the water treatment membranes of each country by evaluating the technical competitiveness of the patent and thesis of the water treatment membranes. In order to evaluate the competitiveness of patent technology, we analyzed the technology using four evaluation items: patent activity, patent concentration, patent market power, and patent influence. Of the 4433 valid patents searched for in relation to water treatment membrane technology, Korea, which belongs to the top 10 countries, ranked second place in patent activity, 10th place in patent market power, and 7th place in patent efficacy, indicating a concentration tendency. As a result of analyzing the top applicants by technology and section, it is found that Japan is much stronger overall, among which Toray Industries, Nitto Denko, and Asahi Glass are among the top applicants. In recent years, however, applications have been actively being made in Korea, such as Korea Institute of Energy Research, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, and Saehan. In addition, some applications related to the technology have appeared in other

in the fourth section.

9 United

Kingdom

216 Desalination and Water Treatment

10 Germany 210 United

**4. Conclusion**

This study was carried out through the analysis of the data of WIPS, a patent analysis agency, and with the help of Kim Se-Jong, Ph.D.
