The World Intellectual Property Indicators 2014, released on November 16th by World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO), provides a wide range of indicators covering the following areas of intellectual property: patents, utility models, trademarks, industrial designs, microorganisms and plant variety protection.
In 2013, patent applications filed worldwide amounted to around 2.57 million, up 9% from 2012. Driving that strong growth were filings in China and the U.S. Francis Gurry, Director General of WIPO, believed that "the rapid growth of patent applications in China has direct relation with transformation of China's economic structure. Strategically, China has shifted from "made in China" to "created in China," transmitted from manufacturing into knowledge-intensive industry, during which IP plays a significant role.
Among the 2.57 million patent applications, 32.1% are filed in China (820,000), 22.3% are filed in the U.S (570,000) and 12.8% are filed in Japan (328,000).
Form the patent application category, computer technology saw the most applications world-wide (7.6%), followed by electric machinery, measuring instruments, digital communications and medical technology.
Patent applications filed in Switzerland are mainly in the pharmaceutical field, those in Russia are mostly in the field of food and chemistry, those in France and German are mainly related to transportation, and however, those in China, South Korean, the U.S. and UK are focusing in the area of computer technology.
In terms of the trademark application world-wide, the office of China's 1.88 million class count was followed by around 486,000 at the U.S. and about 320,000 at the EU. In the past decade, service class 35 (advertising, business management, business administration and office functions) has been the number one since 2004. Second and third highest were goods classes 25 (clothing, footwear, headgear) and 9 (including scientific, photographic, measuring instruments, recording equipment, computers and software).
Source: China IP Magazine
