China Tops 2019 Patent Filings

Last year, for the first time since 1978, when figures for patents issued under the 1970 Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) were first compiled, the USA did not file for the largest number of patents.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), China filed for more patents than any other country last year.

The top ten are: China 58,990 USA 57,840 Japan 52,660 Germany 19,353 Korea 19,085 France 7,934 UK 5,786 Switzerland 4,610 Sweden 4,185 Netherlands 4,011.

"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,” says WIPO director general Francis Gurry.

Last year was a record year for PCT patent filings with them growing by 5.2% to 265,800

Applicants based in Asia accounted for 52.4% of all PCT applications filed in 2019, while Europe (23.2%) and North America (22.8%) accounted for less than a quarter each.

For the third year running Huawei topped the rankings of the biggest company filers. Huawei 4,144 Mitsubishi Electric 2,661 Samsung Electronics 2,334 Qualcomm 2,127 Oppo 1,927.

Among educational institutions the University of California maintained its top rank with 470 published applications in 2019. Tsinghua University (265) ranked second, followed by Shenzhen University (247), MIT (230) and South China University of Technology (164).

Computer technology (8.7% of total) accounted for the largest share of published PCT applications, followed by digital communication (7.7%), electrical machinery (7%), medical technology (6.9%) and measurement (4.7%).

Among the top 10 technologies, semiconductors (+12%) and computer technology (+11.9%) were the fields with the highest rates of growth in 2019.