On April 7, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, announcing 2019 international registration data for patents, trademarks and industrial designs.  It is shown in the data that in 2019, 58.99 million patent applications were submitted from China through the World Intellectual Property Organization's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), which surpassed the United States (57.84 million) and jumped to the first place, becoming the largest number of international patent applications country.

It is showed in the data that in 2019, various global intellectual property data reached a new high. In 2019, the number of international patent applications filed through the PCT route was 26.58 million, with a growth rate of 5.2%.  The number of international trademark applications filed through the Madrid system was 64.44 million, with a growth rate of 5.7%.  The number of design applications for industrial products filed through the Hague system. was 21,807, with a growth rate of 10.4%.  Among them, the top five countries for PCT international patent applications are: China (58.99 million), United States (57.84 million), Japan (52.66 million), Germany (19.353 million) and South Korea (19.085 million); The top five countries for filing international trademark applications through the Madrid system are: the United States (10.08 million), Germany (7700), China (6339), France (4437) and Switzerland (3729); The top five countries for the number of submitted designs through the Hague system are: Germany (4487), South Korea (2736), Switzerland (2178), Italy (1994) and the Netherlands (1376).

In addition, it is shown that in 2019, China's Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ranked first with 4,411 PCT international patent applications.  Behind are Japan ’s Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (2661 cases), South Korea ’s Samsung Electronics (2334 cases), American Qualcomm (2127 cases) and China Guangdong Oppo Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. (1927 cases).  The applicants include 4 Chinese companies.  In terms of universities, the University of California ranked first with 470 international patent applications, Tsinghua University (265) ranked second, followed by Shenzhen University (247), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (230) and South China University of Technology (164).  Among the top ten universities, 5 are from the United States, 4 are from China, and 1 is from South Korea.

From CNIPA

April 7th, 2020