The King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) has approved 3,500 patents since the inception of the patent office in 1982.

Of the total, 171 were Saudi, local media said quoting an official.

A total of 19,523 patent applications have been registered at KACST since then, of which 434 were for Saudi corporations and 15,283 for non-Saudi companies, a report said.

For individually registered applications, Saudis registered 2,910 applications and non-Saudis 896 applications, Arab News reported KACST spokesman Mansour Al-Otaibi as saying.

There were 928 patent applications in 2013, of which 233 were approved and 361 rejected, he said.

Patents for humanitarian needs topped the list, accounting for a third of all applications, followed by chemistry and mining at 26 per cent, transportation at 18 per cent, physics accounting for six per cent of all applications, fixed construction, mechanical engineering and electricity five per cent each and textiles and paper two per cent, he said.