WIPO Releases 2015 Statistics on International PCT, Trademark & Design Filings
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) recently released the statistics on international patent, trademark, and design filings in 2015.
According to the statistics, 218,000 international patent applications were filed under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) during the year, up 1.7% year-on-year. By origin of filings, Asian applications, mainly from China, Japan, and South Korea, accounted for 43% of the world total, whereas the US and Europe accounted for about 26% and 25% of the world total respectively.
The top five countries by number of PCT applications in 2015 were the US (57,385), Japan (44,235), China (29,846), Germany (18,072), and South Korea (14,626), whereas the top five companies were Huawei Technologies (3,898), Qualcomm (2,442), ZTE Corp (2,155), Samsung Electronics (1,683), and Mitsubishi Electric (1,593).
In respect of trademark, 49,273 international applications were filed through the Madrid system in 2015, up 2.9% from the previous year. The top five countries by number of applications were the US (7,340), Germany (6,831), France (4,021), Switzerland (3,051), and the UK (2,730). China ranked seventh on the list with 2,401 applications.
As for design, 16,435 international applications were filed under the Hague system in 2015, an increase of 13.8% over the previous year. The top five countries by number of applications were Germany (3,453), Switzerland (3,316), France (1,317), South Korea (1,282), and Italy (1,186).
