On December 3, 2019 the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) released its annual report on global IP activities, covering numbers on patents, designs, trademarks and many more for 2017. Like last year (link to article), WIPO’s central message again is: China is playing a leading role amongst global IP offices, especially when it comes to patents.
With a total of 3.17 Mio patent applications worldwide in 2017 (+5.8 % compared to 2016), the global long-term trend of strong patent growth seems to continue. China takes in a leading role: With 1.38 Mio applications (+14.2 %), the country makes up for 43 % of global patent applications and contributes to most of Asia’s strong position in today’s IP world.
China’s patent filings are mainly driven by domestic applicants. This goes along with the fact that the most patents worldwide are filed by Chinese companies. When it comes to applications abroad, China is still behind the US, Japan, Germany and South Korea. However, China’s strong growth (+15 %) in this field suggests that the country is going to catch up soon.
CHINABRAND CONSULTING has been observing China’s rise as a global IP leader for a long time. In our work, we observe more and more of proactive applications of Chinese emerging leaders – not only in China, but also in Europe. This is why we strongly recommend Western companies to monitor the global IP applications behaviour of their Chinese competitors.
Source & Picture: WIPO
China Intellectual Property Blog 