China Tops US, Japan in Patent Applications in 2014

[j20blackdragon]

China Tops US, Japan in Patent Applications in 2014
By The Associated Press
GENEVA — Dec 14, 2015, 9:56 AM ET

The World Intellectual Property Organization said Monday that China cranked out patent applications at a record pace last year.

In a numbers- and graphs-rich survey that's aimed at pinpointing the state of play worldwide in patents and trademarks, as well as more specific areas like industrial design and "plant variety" applications, the Geneva-based body said China's patents increased by 12.5 percent in 2014 to 928,000. China's total outstripped the combined total emanating from the U.S. and Japan.

At a news conference timed for the presentation of the annual "World Intellectual Property Indicators" report, WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry marveled at China's "extraordinary" numbers.

He noted strategic decisions by Chinese leaders supporting patent applications in areas like telecommunications and solar power.

The U.S. had the second-most patent applications at 578,000 while Japan came in third with 325,000. Japanese companies, led by Panasonic, made up seven of the top 10 applicants. Korea's Samsung was third and U.S.-based IBM eighth.

Numbers don't tell the whole story though.

"We don't have an accepted metric for quality," Gurry said.

China Tops US, Japan in Patent Applications in 2014 - ABC News

 

[Dungeness]

Resident Patent Applications, China and India: 800K vs 1.2K. India has a huge potential!

 

[Solomon2]

Different countries have different patent regimes. In Japan, for example, a slight difference in an invention can be awarded a new patent that would not merit one in the U.S. - and writing from personal experience, the papers of the Japanese patent might not suffice to duplicate the invention patented! (I don't know what the story is about Chinese stuff.)

 

[PAKISTANFOREVER]

Well done China! GO CHINA GO! Much love to Chinese brothers and sisters from Pakistan

 

[rott]

Resident Patent Applications, China and India: 800K vs 1.2K. India has a huge potential!

I wonder where they pull those gdp figures from?

89% of scientist in USA are Indian
78% of CEO in USA tech company are Indian
98% of venture capitalists in USA are Indian
99% of Hollywood stars in USA are Indian

That's where the potential went.

Oh wait! Didn't they send a probe to Mars?

 

[Shotgunner51]

Different countries have different patent regimes. In Japan, for example, a slight difference in an invention can be awarded a new patent that would not merit one in the U.S. - and writing from personal experience, the papers of the Japanese patent might not suffice to duplicate the invention patented! (I don't know what the story is about Chinese stuff.)

Please check Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) from World Intellectual Property Org (WIPO) site:
PCT – The International Patent System

I will post some details later after sorting out the full WIPO 2015 report

http://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_941_2015.pdf

 

[Shotgunner51]

Patent filings is in fact overwhelmingly dominated by only five countries:

1. China
2. USA
3. Japan
4. South Korea
5. Germany/EU

Patent filings since 1883

From 1883 to 1963, the USPTO was the leading office in world filings. Application numbers at the JPO and the USPTO were stable until the early 1970s, when the JPO began to see rapid growth, a pattern also observed for the USPTO from the 1980s onwards.

Among the top five offices, the JPO surpassed the USPTO in 1968 and maintained the top position until 2005. Since 2006, the number of applications at the JPO has trended downward. Both the EPO and KIPO have seen increases each year since the early 1980s, as has SIPO since 2001. SIPO surpassed the EPO and KIPO in 2005, the JPO in 2010 and the USPTO in 2011 – and it now receives the largest number of applications worldwide.​

There has been a gradual upward trend in the combined share of the top five offices in the world total – from 70% in 2000 to 82% in 2014.​

Patent filings per capita 2014

Despite China leads the world by far in total patent filings, however in terms of per capita (per million population) only ranks globally #9 (587), on par with Sweden (604), Denmark (596) or Netherlands (543). The Nordic countries come higher in this rank.​

The best performers in this regard include #1 South Korea (3,254), #2 Japan (2,884) & #4 Germany (913). China has some room to catch up.​

 

[Beidou2020]

I wonder where they pull those gdp figures from?


Oh wait! Didn't they send a probe to Mars?

NASA did that.

 

[Aepsilons]

An impressive feat by our Chinese peers. Awesome!

 

[Shotgunner51]

An impressive feat by our Chinese peers. Awesome!

Japan and Korea are still leading the world by far (in per capita), hats off!
But behold China is catching up fast, we must invest more into education, R&D.

 

[Shotgunner51]

Other than patent, another key IP is Industrial Design Counts/Reg (Section C, WIPO 2015 Report). This indicator is paritcularly important to industrialized/manufacturing countries. Similar to patent, this IP is overwhelmingly dominated by only five countries:

1. China
2. USA
3. Japan
4. South Korea
5. Germany/EU

Industrial design applications filed since 1883

Between 1883 and the early 1950s, the Japan Patent Office (JPO) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) averaged similar numbers of applications, rarely exceeding 10,000. The JPO received the largest number of applications from the 1950s to the late 1990s, reaching about 50,000 annual filings at its peak.

SIPO began receiving applications in 1985 and saw unprecedented growth, from 640 in 1985 to 660,000 in 2013.

In 2004, KIPO surpassed the JPO and has remained the second-largest office.

In 2012, the USPTO moved ahead of the JPO to become the third largest.

OHIM began receiving applications in 2003 and has remained the fifth largest.

** Note in the above chart, Y-scale is truncated because of explosive growth of China, far exceeding the other countries.​

Industrial Design Counts By Country of Origin 2014

China leads the rank by 556,501 counts (42% of world total registration), followed by Germany, South Korea.

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