China’s ZTE Corporation overtook its crosstown rival Huawei Technologies as the biggest filer of international patent applications via WIPO in 2016 and U.S.-based Qualcomm Inc. claimed third position amid another year of strong demand for WIPO’s intellectual property filing services for patents, trademarks and industrial designs.
Overall, applicants based in the United States maintained their number one ranking for the 39th year running, accounting for roughly a quarter (24.3%) of the 233,000 applications filed under WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in 2016 – itself a 7.3 percent year-on-year increase – followed by applicants in Japan (19.4%) and China (18.5%), with the latter driving the overall growth in demand. Digital communications and computer technology showed the greatest activity by sector.
In 2016, U.S.-based applicants filed 56,595 PCT applications, followed by applicants from Japan (45,239) and China (43,168), which has posted double-digit growth each year since 2002. If this current trend continues, China will overtake the U.S. within two years as the largest user of the PCT System. Germany and the Republic of Korea with 18,315 and 15,560 applications were ranked fourth and fifth, respectively. China and India (1,529) are the only two middle-income countries among the top 15 origins.
U.S. applicants (7,741) filed the largest number of international trademark applications using WIPO’s Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks in 2016, closely followed by Germany (7,551), France (4,132), China (3,200) and Switzerland (3,074). China, Turkey (1,221; ranked 12th) and the Russian Federation (1,176; 13th) are the only three middle-income countries in the top 15 list .
International industrial design applications filed via WIPO’s Hague System for the International Registration of Industrial Designs grew by 35.3% in 2016. While designs contained in those applications grew by 13.9%. The 5,562 applications filed in 2016 contained 18,716 designs.
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