China's Patent Applications Account for 32.1% of the World

On December 12th, WIPO issued 2014 World Intellectual Property Index (hereafter as Index) in Geneva. The Index shows that, the patent applications of the world in 2013 saw a rapid growth mainly due to China’s double-digit growth in patent applications. Among 2.57 million patent applications, about one third are submitted by China, followed by the USA and Japan.

Francis Gurry, the Director General of WIPO, believes that the rapid growth of China’s patent applications have a direct relationship with the transformation of China’s economic structure. From the strategic perspective, China has started the transition from “made in China” to “created in China” as well as the transition from manufacturing to knowledge-intensive industries. In this process, intellectual property plays an important role.

From the amount of patent applications, in 2013, a total of approximately 2.57 million patent applications were submitted all over the world. More than 820,000 are from China, accounting for 32.1% of the global total amount; the United States submitted more than 570,000, accounting for 22.3%; Japan submitted 328,000, accounting for 12.8%.

In addition, as for applications of trademark registration, China submitted 1.88 million trademark registration applications, which was the most in the world; the United States submitted 480,000, and EU did 320,000. Judging from the category, over the past 10 years, the service-related categories, such as advertising, business operations and management, have been the largest category.

(Source: China IP News)