As per the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), China is now leading as the country with the greatest number of patent applications filed globally. Since the commencement of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in 1978, the United States of America has held this position, which has now been taken over by China.
China had filed 276 patent applications with WIPO back in 1999, which steadily rose each year. In 2019, WIPO received 58,990 applications from China. The top 5 countries to file it applications with WIPO includes China, USA, Japan, Germany, and Korea.
China taking a lead by becoming the top applicant of international patents, reveals the shift of innovation to the East, Given the Asians being the frontrunners for filing the PCT patent applications by more than 50%. An overall increase in patents filed across the world are witnesses to this period. These statics means that the market is witnessing innovations in communication technologies, new drug inventions which offer different solutions for global challenges that would be beneficial to all.
India, had filed 2,053 applications in 2019, increasing the number by 2.6% compared to the applications filed in 2018. This number is half of the patent applications filed by Huawei [Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. is a Chinese multinational technology company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong]. They filed 4,411 applications and are also the top corporate filer for the year 2019.
Patent filings of India are much lower than most other corporate filers that include Mitsubishi Electric Corp of Japan with 2,661 filings, Samsung electronics applied for 2,334 patents, and Qualcomm filed for 2,127 patents. With a meagre 0.77% contribution to the global list of patent filing, India was not featured in the top 50 corporates that contributed to patent applications in the year 2019.
Statistics Of The Top 5 Countries To File Patent Applications With WIPO:
- China – 58,990 applications, and their contribution was 22% of total filings
- US – 57,840 applications and their contribution was 21.7% of total filings
- Japan – 52,660 applications and their contribution was 19.8% of total filings
- Germany – 19,353 applications and their contribution was 7.2% of total filings
- The Republic of Korea – 19085 applications and their contribution was 7.2% of total filings
The top 15 to file the patent applications with WIPO consist of 12 high-income countries and 3 middle-income countries that are China, Turkey, and India. Applicants from Asia made 52.4% of all PCT applications filed in 2019, Europe was the second-highest with 23.2%, and North America was next with 22.8%.
With just 2,053 applications filed, India’s contribution was 0.77% only and is ranked 14th in the list.
India failed to make it to the top 10 educational institutions list to file for patents. With an increase of 21% from last year the IIT’s submitted 58 applications.
However, this was nothing compared to the 470 applications that were filed by the University of California, second in the list being Tsinghua University with 265 applications, Shenzhen University filed 247 applications, Massachusetts Institute of Technology submitted 230 applications and the South China University of Technology filed 164 applications.
The Top 10 Applications From India Were Submitted By:
- IIT – 58 applications
- Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – 45 applications
- Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd – 22 applications
- Indian Institute of Science – 22 applications
- UPL Limited – 22 applications
- Cipla Limited – 18 applications
- Hero Motocorp Limited – 15 applications
- Meril Life Sciences Pvt Ltd. – 14 applications
- Reliance Industries Limited – 14 applications
- PI Industries Ltd. – 13 applications
It is not just the number of filings that need to be applied for but trademarks too. With just 460 applications submitted for trademarks, India has made 0.7% of the total global filings only. The US filed most applications for trademarks and their numbers were 10,087. Germany submitted 7,700 applications, China 6,339 applications, France 4,437 applications, and Switzerland 3,729.
The Top Indian Applicants For Trademark Were:
- NIRSAN CONNECT PRIVATE LIMITED – 124 applications
- Welspun – 19 applications
- UPL – 16 applications
- Birla Century – 10 applications
- Saregama – 7 applications
- Welspun Flooring – 7 applications
- Aurea Biolabs Private Limited – 5 applications
- Biotech Visioncare Private Limited – 5 applications
- Brainbees Solutions Private Limited – 5 applications
- Datar Cancer Genetics Limited – 5 applications
There were just 3 trademark applications from India for Industrial designs compared to 21,807 applications that were submitted by other countries. Germany, Korea, Switzerland, Italy, and the Netherlands topped the list of applicants.
Other Article: China overtakes U.S. with most patent filings in 2019: UN by CGTN
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