Asia-based innovators dominated patent filing in 2018: WIPO
Significant growth from China, India and the Republic of Korea has ensured that Asia-based innovators filed more than half of all international patent applications via the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) last year.
In statistics released this morning, March 19, WIPO said that its Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) passed a record-breaking quarter-million filing mark in 2018, a 3.9% increase over 2017.
While US-based inventors filed the greatest number of PCT patent applications in 2018 (56,142), this was down 0.9% year-on-year.
The US was trailed closely by China, with 53,345 applications and an increase of 9.1% year-on-year. Although China’s rate was its lowest since 2002, WIPO expects the country to take the top spot within the next two years.
Japan (49,702), Germany (19,883) and the Republic of Korea (17,014) ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively.
Francis Gurry, WIPO’s director general, added: “Asia is now the majority filer of international patent applications via WIPO, which is an important milestone for that economically dynamic region and underscores the historical geographical shift of innovative activity from West to East.”
In 2018, more than half of all PCT applications stemmed from Asia (50.5%), with Europe (24.5%) and North America (23.1%) accounting for about a quarter each.
China-based telecoms company Huawei Technologies was the top corporate filer last year, with a record number of 5,405 published PCT applications. Huawei was followed by Mitsubishi Electric of Japan (2,812), and Intel of the US.
Chinese telecoms company ZTE, which had taken the top spot in 2016, saw a 29.8% drop in the number of published PCT filings in 2018, the second year of declines.
Six companies from Asia, two from Europe and two from the US took the top ten spots.
WIPO’s Madrid System saw 61,200 international trademark applications, a 6.4% increase from 2017. The top five filers came from the US (8,825); Germany (7,495); China (6,900); France (4,490); and Switzerland (3,364).
Switzerland-based Novartis filed 174 applications, taking it to the top of the list. Novartis was closely followed French cosmetics company L’Oréal with 169 applications and Germany-based Daimler of Germany (129).
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