‘China driving global innovation’

GENEVA: China is driving Asian-led growth in innovation worldwide, becoming the first country to file one million patent applications in a single year, said the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) on Wednesday.

Chinese innovators filed most of their applications last year in electrical engineering, which includes telecoms, followed by computer technology and semiconductors, and measurement instruments, including medical technology, said the United Nations agency.

“The figures for China are quite extraordinary. It is the first patent office in the world to receive more than one million applications,” WIPO director-general Francis Gurry told a news briefing to launch its report, “World Intellectual Property Indicators”.

The bulk of China’s 1.01 million applications were for domestic protection in patents, trademarks and industrial design, with only some 42,154 filed abroad, he said.

But there was a “slow and gradual” increase in China’s applications for international patents, said Gurry.

“Once again we see an increasing dominance almost by Asia as the origin of filing activity for intellectual property. If you look at the figures, you see 62 per cent of global filing activity for patents is located in Asia, 55 of global activity in trademarks is located in Asia and 68 per cent of design applications are in Asia,” he added.

Worldwide, some 2.9 million patent applications were filed last year, a 7.8 per cent rise over 2014, said WIPO. Roughly two in three patents were approved, said Gurry.

The United States ranked second last year with 526,296 patent applications, followed by Japan at 454,285 and South Korea with 238,015. Reuters