‘Too early to draw strong conclusions’: WIPO reports first drop in patent filings in 14 years
Statistics show decreases in PCT applications and filings through WIPO’s trademark system | Design applications buck trend | India, South Korea and Türkiye show IP growth.
Global patent filings through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system declined for the first time in 14 years in 2023, according to statistics released today (March 7) by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
The WIPO’s annual IP filing statistics revealed a 1.8% drop in PCT filings last year and a 7% reduction in applications through the international trademark system—but India, the Republic of Korea and Türkiye bucked this trend, reporting year-on-year growth for three consecutive years in IP filings.
Design applications increased by 1%, partly due to activity from China which acceded to the Hague Agreement in 2022.
Higher interest rates and economic uncertainty had created an adverse environment for innovation and entrepreneurial activity, according to the WIPO’s chief economist Carsten Fink, who said he believed the figures represented a “cyclical phenomenon” that would improve in parallel with the global economy.
It was “too early to draw strong conclusions”, Fink suggested, emphasising that the innovation system had by no means come to a halt—highlighting the increased activity around AI.
But the decrease was “concerning” in the sense that technological progress generated economic growth, he said.
WIPO director Daren Tang said that while higher interest rates and economic uncertainties had “cast a shadow on innovation activity in 2023”, a recovery could be seen even later this year.
“Despite these shorter-term dips, longer-term trends show IP use rising steadily in an increasingly global, digitalised economy and spreading across the globe as economies around the world develop,” he continued.
The most active filers in 2023
Fink said the most significant exception to the downward trend was India, where innovators increased their patent filing activity by nearly 50% last year.
This could partly be attributed to a burgeoning domestic venture capital scene, as well as the clout of the country’s huge market and the fact it was at an earlier stage of its IP journey compared to, for example, China.
In 2023, China continued to top the table for number of PCT applications filed with 69,610—a slight decrease of 0.6% from the year before.
The US followed with 55,678 applications, a 5.3% drop on 2022, and Japan, the Republic of Korea and Germany completed the top five countries.
In terms of which companies filed the most patents, China’s Huawei was by far the most prolific with 6,494 published PCT applications in 2023. Samsung took the second spot with 3,924.
One company that stood out in terms of increased patent activity was Contemporary Amperex Technology from China, a lithium-ion battery manufacturer that leapt 84 places in the table of PCT applicants to eighth place, having filed 266 applications in 2022 and 1,799 in 2023.
Regarding trademarks filed through WIPO’s Madrid system, US-based applicants were the most active with 10,987, followed by those in Germany (6,613), China (5,473), France (4,267) and the UK (3,817).
Only China and the Republic of Korea recorded growth in Madrid trademark filings in 2023, with Germany, Australia, Switzerland and the US all reporting double-digit declines.
Samsung tops designs table
It was a different picture for designs, however, with international applications under WIPO’s Hague system increasing slightly by 1% to reach a record high of 25,343.
Samsung was the top filer of designs through the system in 2023 with 544 published applications, overtaking Procter & Gamble which had previously held the top spot.
Other firms to significantly increase their design applications were Porsche, Hermes, Germany’s Triple A Finance and Alfred Karcher.
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