Now here's a bit of interesting (useless depending on your point of view and attention span) information which begs the question. Which company published 594 patent applications in 2008 and is among the top 15 patent applicants in Germany? The clue (for a pie) is in the picture above... But if you still haven't worked it out through here for the answer.
Well done to all of you who said: "Well obviously, it's ZF Friedrichshafen AG... Errr... Duh!" And no pies to everyone else. Yes the German gearbox, steering gear, suspension and various other automotive bits and bobs manufacturer is actually ranked at number 7 out of the top 15 German patent applicants in 2008--and here they are listed below.
As you can see it's keeping company rubbing shoulders with the likes of Daimler-Benz, Conti Tyres, VW and Audi and Robert Bosch to name but five. ZF goes further by claiming that it's "At the top of the transmission manufacturers' rank and leaves all automotive manufacturers behind. To give you some idea of how busy it's been it's recently it's filed more than 100 original patent applications for its latest 8-speed auto (that's it pictured at the top of the blog) and it adds "No other industry has filed as many patent applications with the European Patent Office (EPO) as vehicle engineering and mechanical engineering. The Electrical Engineering field and transmission manufacturers follow."
Indeed, Biglorrylog understands that approximately one third of all transmission patents between March 2008 and February 2009 came from Germany, with a good quarter of them from ZF. So there...
Don't want to sound snotty... But VAG is in fact #4 since Volkswagen and Audi are 1 company...