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China is the top filer of International Patents in 2019

For the first time in the history of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) System, China is the top source of international patent applications.China has surpassed the USA and became the top filer in 2019: the best performers in terms of growth among top 15 countries are China, South Korea, Turkey and Canada.


Source: WIPO - World Intellectual Property Organization

With 58,990 applications filed in 2019, China became the biggest user of the PCT System that helps incentivize and spread innovation – a position previously held by the U.S. each year since the PCT began operations in 1978.While the world growth is +5.2%, Turkey moved up in the top 15 rank for the first time (+46.7%), together with the Republic of Korea (+12.8%) and Canada (+12.2%); Italy reaches a good 11th place (sixth in the EU) with +1.7%. Germany and Netherlands show decreasing values.For the third consecutive year, China-based telecoms giant Huawei Technologies, with 4,411 published PCT applications, was the top corporate filer in 2019. It was followed by Mitsubishi Electric Corp. of Japan(2,661); Samsung Electronics of the Republic of Korea (2,334); Qualcomm Inc. of the U.S. (2,127); and Guang Dong Oppo Mobile Telecommunications of China (1,927).Among educational institutions, the top 10-university list comprises five universities from the U.S., four from China and one from the Republic of Korea.

Among fields of technology, computer technology (8.7% of total) accounted for the largest share of published PCT applications, followed by digital communication (7.7%), electrical machinery (7%), medical technology (6.9%) and measurement (4.7%). Among the top 10 technologies, semiconductors (+12%) and computer technology (+11.9%) were the fields with the highest rates of growth in 2019.


HFG Law&Intellectual Property