China sees surge in international patent applications
China’s IP office has received more than 11,000 international patent applications in just six months, an increase of more than 20%.
In the first half of the year, 11,243 applications were made at China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), representing a 20.5% increase on the same period last year.
More than 90 percent of applications came from domestic companies and individuals, the office said.
The figures were taken from applications made through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) run system that enables an application to be protected in all member states.
Among the most prolific filers were technology companies, including telecoms equipment maker ZTE and phone maker Huawei.
More than half the filings came from China’s Guangdong province, where both ZTE and Huawei are based.
The rise in patent applications is in line with the recent trend in China, which is fast becoming one of the world’s most prolific filers.
In March this year, WIPR reported a SIPO announcement that invention patents had jumped by 26 percent from 652,777 to 825,000, more than a third of the total number of applications received at the office.
In China there are three types of patent: invention, utility model and design. Huawei was again among the most prolific filers.
In December 2013, a report by WIPO showed that Chinese residents filed the most patents (560,681) worldwide in 2012.
