On 28 February 2023, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released its report on international patent applications of year 2022. According to the report, filings of international patent applications through WIPO's PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) in 2022 rose slightly by 0.3% over the previous year, reaching 278,100, the highest number ever recorded in a single year.

 

By origin of applications, China remained, for the fourth consecutive year, in the leading position, with 70,015 applications (year-on-year growth of 0.6%), accounting for more than 25% of the total filings in 2022; the second to fifth places were occupied by the US (59,056), Japan (50,345), Korea (22,012), and Germany (17,530). Asia continued to be the dominant source of international patent applications, representing an overall share of 54.7% of 2022's total filings. Among the Asian filers, India (top 12th by origin) and Korea (top 4th) exhibited notable growth of 25.4% and 6.2% respectively.

 

In terms of company ranking, China-based Huawei Technologies, with 7,689 published PCT applications in 2022, retained the top spot for the sixth consecutive year; coming in second and third were Samsung Electronics of Korea (4,387 applications) and Qualcomm of the US (3,855). Samsung Electronics had the fastest growth in PCT filings of 44.3% among the top 10 applicants.

 

In the education sector, the top three applicants were University of California of the US (552 published PCT applications), Zhejiang University of China (309), and Suzhou University of China (303). Suzhou University saw the sharpest increase among the top 10 educational institutions, with its number of PCT applications almost doubling from 2021.

 

By technical field, computer technology accounted for the largest share of published PCT applications (10.4%), followed by digital communication (9.4%) and electrical machinery (7.1%).