The WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) published the annual World Intellectual Property Indicators of 2017. The report is based on data from Industrial Property offices around the world, the WIPO and the World Bank.

For the second consecutive year, the number of applications filed worldwide continued to grow, with China driving the growth in filings for patents, trademarks, industrial designs and other IP rights being the top one in Digital Communication, Computer technology, Electrical machinery, apparatus and energy.

“Demand for IP protection is rising faster than the rate of global economic growth, illustrating that IP-backed innovation is an increasingly critical component of competition and commercial activity,” said WIPO Director General Francis Gurry at the ceremony held in Geneva last 3 December.

Patent applications filed worldwide reached 3.17 million in 2017 representing an increase of 5.8% in a series of eight consecutive years of growth. China’s IP office received the highest number of patent applications in 2017, a record total of 1.38 million. It was followed by the offices of the United States of America (U.S.; 606,956), Japan (318,479), the Republic of Korea (204,775) and the European Patent Office (EPO; 166,585).

An estimated 9.11 million trademark applications covering 12.39 million classes were filed worldwide in 2017. The number of classes specified in applications grew by  26.8€ in 2017, marking the eight consecutive of growth.

Approximately 945,100 industrial design application containing 1.24 millions designs were filed around the world in 2017. The office of China received applications containing 628,658 designs in 2017, corresponding to 50.6% of the world total. It was followed by the EUIPO (111,021), the KIPO (67,357), Turkey (46,875) and the U.S. (45,881). Among the top 20 offices, the fastest growth in design counts occurred in the U.K. (+92.1%), Spain (+23.5%) and Switzerland (+17.9%).

Telecommunications, Digital Communication and Electronics, the top Technology fields

The numbers of the report reveal that the major number of requests have been filed in these fields of the technology, mainly in Asian countries, The United States and Germany.

For the third consecutive year, two Chinese technology companies were the top filers of international patent applications in 2017 (based on published applications). Huawei was ranked in first place and ZTE in second. They were followed by Intel of the U.S., Mitsubishi Electric of Japan and Qualcomm of the U.S.

Spain data

The results from Spain show some stability with respect to last year´s report, occupying the 23rd place in terms of the number of patent applications filed, the 16th place for trademarks and the 10th place in terms of designs. The report shows the growth in the wind sector in the years 2014-2016 (2nd country with the largest increase after Denmark). With regard to the internationalization of inventions, Spain appears in position No 18 in the list of countries of filing international PCT applications, highlighting the percentage of women inventors in this type of applications (35.4% over the total). More than 50% of the trademarks filed corresponds to Nice classes related to services, a shift that is repeated in previous years.

Source: WIPO Statistics Database, November 2018

You can download the report at this link.