On March 2nd, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released its latest report in Geneva, which stated that in 2020, the number of international patent applications submitted by China through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) reached 68,720, up 16.1% year-on-year, and it continued to rank first in the world. In 2019, the number of PCT international patent applications in China surpassed the United States for the first time, leading the world.

According to the report, despite the COVID-19 epidemic, the number of international patent applications submitted by global applicants will continue to grow in 2020. In 2020, the number of international patent applications for PCT worldwide increased by 4%, reaching 275,900, creating the highest number in history. Among them, the top five countries in PCT international patent applications are China (68,720), the United States (59,230), Japan (50,520), South Korea (20,060) and Germany (18,643); The top five countries in terms of the number of international trademark applications submitted through the Madrid system are the United States (10,005), Germany (7,334), China (7,075), France (3,716) and the United Kingdom (3,679). Among the top ten countries of application origin, China is the only country that will achieve double-digit growth in 2020, with a year-on-year increase of 16.4%.

In addition, according to the classification of PCT international patent applicants, enterprises and universities in China are outstanding. In 2020, the number of PCT international patent applications of China Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. was 5,464, ranking first for four consecutive years, followed by Samsung Electronics of South Korea, mitsubishi electric Co., Ltd. of Japan, LG Electronics of South Korea and Qualcomm of the United States. Among the top ten universities in PCT international patent applications, five are from China, namely Shenzhen University, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Dalian University of Technology and South China University of Technology.

(Source: China Intellectual Property News/China Intellectual Property Information Network)