A record number of international patents were filed last year, indicating that innovation had not been stymied by the pandemic, a United Nations agency said on Thursday.
Even as Covid-19 took a vast human and economic toll, international patent applications continued to grow, with Asia, and China in particular, cementing their leading positions.
In the main category – the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) – China remained at the top of the rankings with 69,540 filings, although that marks a mere 0.9% increase over 2020.
But a year earlier, China registered a 16% jump over 2019, when it for the first time overtook the US as the world’s top international patent filer.
The US remained in second place in 2021, with 59,570 filings, followed by Japan with 50,260, South Korea with 20,678 and Germany with 17,322.
WIPO’s report showed that Asia-based applicants accounted for 54.1% of all filings last year, up from 38.5% a decade earlier. Singapore saw its international patent applications swell by 23% to 1,617.
A record 277,500 international patents were filed in 2021, marking a 0.9% increase from 2020, the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization said in its annual overview.
“These figures show that human ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit remain strong despite the disruptions caused by the pandemic.” WIPO director-general Daren Tang said in a statement.
Huawei is Top Company
For the fifth consecutive year, China-based telecoms giant Huawei Technologies topped the global ranking in 2021, with 6,952 PCT applications.
The company thus applied for more international patents than all the filings out of Britain in 2021.
Huawei was followed by US firm Qualcomm at 3,931; South Korea’s Samsung Electronics at 3,041 and LG Electronics at 2,855; and Mitsubishi Electric of Japan at 2,673.
Last year marked the 12th consecutive year of growth in international patent filings.
WIPO’s chief economist Carsten Fink highlighted how remarkable it was that “international patent filings continued to grow in 2020 and 2021 as the global pandemic unfolded and upended economies around the world.”
“This experience is notably different compared to previous economic crises,” he told reporters, pointing to how international patent filings fell during the global financial crisis in 2009.
WIPO’s complex system of registering international patents involves multiple categories, including global trademarks and design filing systems.
• AFP, with additional editing by George Russell
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