WIPO report: China driving growth in global patent filings rise

In 2014, China received 928,000 invention patent applications, ranking the top in the world, accounting for 34% of the total applications in the world. At the same time, the annual average growth rate of China’s invention application stood at 12.5%, ranking the second position as the global patent filings rose in 2014 for fifth straight year. China also ranked the third position in the world in its PCT filings, according to the 2015 edition of the World Intellectual Property Indicators released by WIPO.

In the past five years, China saw a rapid growth in its IP community, reflected by its innovative companies and the whole society, according to WIPO report.

The report also shows that, in 2010, China overtook Japan and became the second largest economy in the world. In the same year, China saw an increase of 24.3% in invention patent filings, ranking the second place in the world, doubled than that in EPO. In parallel, China surpassed the South Korea in PCT filings, becoming the fourth largest PCT filing country worldwide.

It is worth mention that in 2011, China has ranked first in terms of the number of patent applications, with 526,000 invention patent filings. China has become an IP power house as in the past 100 years, only Germany, Japan and the USA were in the top slot.

According to 2013 edition of the World Intellectual Property Indicators, China has ranked the first in terms of number of invention patent filings with 653,000 for two consecutive years.

According to 2014 edition of the World Intellectual Property Indicators, China recieved 825,000 invention patent applications in 2013, accounting for 33.3% of the world’s total, rankign the top for three concecutive years.

According to the report, an estimated 10.2 million patents were in force worldwide in 2014, with the bulk of then in the US (24.7% of the world total), Japan (18.8%) and China (11.7%). US applicants filed the most applications aboard (224,000), followed by Japan (200,000). By contrast, Chinese applicants filed around 36,000 applications abroad.

“It is no difficult to find out that there is stall a gap between China and other IP power houses in global valid invention patent share and aboard patent applications, therefore, concerted efforts should be made to narrow this gap” said Li Shunde, the dean of Legal and Intellectual Property Department, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Since the start of 12th Five-Year Plan, more and more Chinese companies have redoubling efforts to catch up with IP powers. “As of now, ZTE Corporation have obtained more than 60,000 patents from home and aboard, 90% of which were high quality patents,” said GuoXiaoming, the vice president of ZTE. “The globalization IP layout is an important guaranty for ZTE participating in international market contests.In 2014, ZTE ranked among the top three applicants under the PCT system with 2,179 patent filings, which is the only Chinese company to rank the top three for fifth straight year,” adds Guo.

By now, more and more Chinese companies like ZTE have attached a great importance in global IP layout. Thanks to its growing invention and PCT filings, the Lenovo, Inspur Group, Haier and other Chinese companies have advanced by leaps and bounds during the 12th Five-Year Plan.

It is IP authorities’ efforts that shaped companies dramatic rise. In a bid to enhance the ability of innovators to use IP, SIPO and other relevant authorities have made heroic efforts. Especially since 2014, SIPO revised the patent law a fourth time, promote the modification of Service Invention Regulations, Regulations on Patent Commissioning, formulated the Measures for Patent Administrative Law Enforcement and etc., which provide a sound market environment for innovators in institutional building and public service. Statistics from SIPO said that, in the first 11 months of 2015, China received 810,000 invention applications from domestic applicants, an increase of 21%.

“Further inspiration of innovation activities is crucial in the transformation of big IP country to the power one, which is also an important support for Chinese companies to participate in international market competition in the coming 13th Five-Year Plan, ”