The number of patents filed in a country directly depicts the socio-economic development in the country. China is known as the world’s factory. It is good to see that the country is strategically supporting innovations and inventions. The latest annual report from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) provides ample evidence on the development in China in 2019.

According to WIPO’s annual report for the year 2019, China ranks first in filing international patents worldwide. The country has submitted 58,990 patent applications through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system. The Chinese filing in 2019 is a noteworthy achievement as the U.S. has always ranked first for more than four decades.

The Director-General of WIPO, Francis Gurry, stated that China filed 276 applications only in the year 1999. At the same time, the country has filed 58,990 applications in 2019, showing a 200-fold increase within two decades.

Mr.Gurry also mentioned,” China’s rapid growth to become the top filer of international patent applications via WIPO underlines a long-term shift in the locus of innovation towards the East, with Asia-based applicants now accounting for more than half of all PCT applications.”

Top Patent Applicants

The PCT system received 2,65,800 applications last year. 52.4% of the total PCT applications were from Asian Countries. Secondly, Europe contributed to 23.2% of the applications followed by North America with 22.8%

China is the leading user to file patent applications in the PCT system, followed by the U.S, Japan, Germany, and the Republic of Korea. The annual growth of China in filing patents has increased by 10.6%.

Patent Applications from Corporate

The famous telecommunications company Huawei Technologies is the leading corporate applicant in patents for the third consecutive year. The company has published 4,411 PCT applications. Meanwhile, Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (Japan), Samsung Electronics (Republic of Korea), and Qualcomm Inc. (U.S) follow in the list of top PCT patent applicants. Furthermore, the Guang Dong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications in China ranks fifth with 1,927 applications.

In fact, among the top ten companies with the highest number of patent applications, four of them are from China. The other two companies are namely Boe Technology Group Co., Ltd, and Ping An Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.

Patent Applications from Universities

The University of California stands first with 470 published applications for the year 2019. However, Tsinghua University and Shenzhen University from China, rank second and third with 265 and 247 patents respectively. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (U.S.) is in the fourth position with 230 patents. Moreover, the South China University of Technology has published 164 patent applications and ranks fifth in the list.

Among the top 10 universities who have published the maximum patent applications, five universities are from the U.S., four universities from China, and one university is in the Republic of Korea.

This annual report reinstates that China is laying its milestone among the Intellectual Property Rights community. The sky-rocketing patent application numbers from the country show its growth day in and day out. Besides, being the manufacturing hub of the world, China’s development in filing patent applications will act as an added advantage to it in the global market.

The annual report once again highlights the importance of filing patents for the research and inventions carried out.

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