Asia takes lead in patent and TM applications: WIPO
Drop in patenting activity seen in some G2 nations | China’s office records the highest volume of trademark filing activity | WIPO | EPO | Daren Tang.
Increases in global patent and trademark filings are being driven by strong growth in filings in Asian offices, particularly in China, according to a report from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
Offices in Asia received two-thirds of patent applications, propelled by strong growth in local patent filings in China (+5.5%), the Republic of Korea (+2.5%) and India (+5.5%).
According to the WIPO’s World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPI) report, published yesterday, November 21, in 2021, 3.4 million patent applications were filed, up 3.6% from the previous year with offices in Asia receiving 67.6% of all applications worldwide.
China’s IP office received 1.59 million patent applications in 2021, double the amount received by the US (591,473). Together, China, the US, Japan (289,200), the Republic of Korea (237,998) and the European Patent Office (188,778) accounted for 85% of the world total.
Patenting activity
Patenting activity declined in the US (-1.2%), Japan (-1.7%) and Germany (-3.9%) but the majority of the top 20 offices (15 out of 20) received a greater number of patent applications in 2021 than in 2020.
On the trademark front, there was another year of growth. An estimated 13.9 million applications covering 18.1 million classes were filed worldwide in 2021. The number of classes specified in applications grew by 5.5% in 2021, marking a twelfth successive year of growth.
“This growth in registering new brands coincided with a boom in entrepreneurial activity and venture capital deals prompted by the pandemic’s disruptions,” said WIPO.
Trademark filing activity grew in 18 of the top 20 offices, with 11 of the offices recording double-digit growth, ranging from 12.7% in the Republic of Korea to 61.8% in the UK.
Asian offices accounted for 69.7% of all trademark filing activity in 2021, up from 44.7% in 2011. Meanwhile Europe’s share has declined in the ten years from 31.6% in 2011 to 15.7% in 2021.
Brexit effects
China’s IP office had the highest volume of filing activity with a class count of around 9.5 million. This was followed by the US Patent and Trademark Office (899,678), the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) (497,542), and the offices of India (488,526) and the UK (450,815).
At the same time, China received more than half of the world total of industrial design applications in 2021. An estimated 1.2 million industrial design applications containing 1.5 million designs were filed worldwide in 2021, amounting to growth of 9.2%.
Due to Brexit, the office of the UK received 2.3 times more designs in applications in 2021 than in the prior year, making it the third most active office in terms of application design count in 2021.
A looming downturn
WIPO Director General Daren Tang said that the latest data shows continued and sustained growth in IP filings, driven largely by increases from Asia.
“IP filing strength during the pandemic showed that people across the world continued to innovate and create despite the economic and social disruptions caused by the pandemic,” he added.
However, Tang noted that this resilience “should not be taken for granted”.
He said: “Another economic downturn is looming and geopolitical tensions have increased. However, the challenges facing us right now such as climate change and the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals means that we have to continue supporting innovators and creators to use the IP system to bring their ideas to reality, and create the impact that will change our lives for the better.”
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