Big five witness rise in patent filings
The world’s five largest IP offices, known as the IP5, received nearly 1.9 million patent applications last year, according to a report.
That figure, accounting for filings in Europe, Japan, South Korea, China and the US, represented an 11 percent jump from the previous year’s total.
The data was published by the European Patent Office, one of the IP5 members, which said the number of Patent Cooperation Treaty applications “continued to increase”.
Additionally, the report showed that the IP5 offices granted almost 924,000 patents in 2012, an increase of 17 percent from 2011, while it hailed a new version of the common application format, which standardises patent specifications.
IP5 highlights in 2012 included a reduction of the backlog at the US Patent and Trademark Office and a record number of “invention” filings (nearly 653,000)) at the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China.
The report, in its second edition, noted that the IP5 offices have worked together closely since 2007 to “improve efficiency and address the growing backlogs in applications worldwide”.
