The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) stated in a report dated October 16th that the patent application within the territory of China is rapidly increasing and that the patent application in 2004 within the territory of China is ranked 5th in the world.  In the past ten years, China's patent application has increased by 700 percent.

This report that assessed the patent application in the range of the world stated: "In the 10 years between 1995 and 2004, the annual average growth rate of patent application in the world is 4.75 percent.  The number of the approved patents in the same period also grew at a similar speed.  In 2004, the total number of patent application in the world is 1.6 million items, of which, more than 600,000 were approved.  This report indicates that in the past 20 years, the number of patent application is rapidly on the increase, especially in the northeastern region of which, China and the Republic of Korea were most prominent.  The report stated that there were 65786 patent applications from the Chinese residents within the territory of China, and that there were 64598 patent applications from the non-Chinese residents.  In comparison, the majority of the patent applicants in Japan and the Republic of Korea were residents of the nation country."

In 2004, Japan was on top of the world in terms of the total number of patent application, the United States, the European Union and the Republic of Korea were ranked 2nd to 4th respectively.  Russia, Brazil and India were ranked the 9th, the 11th and the 12th in terms of patent application.  The report indicated that Japan and the United States were the countries that owned the greatest numbers of effective patents in the world, and the effective patent numbers they own account for 29 percent and 23 percent respectively in the world.

It is learnt that the patent mentioned in the statistic report of WIPO refers only to the invention patent specified in China's Patent Law.  And the invention patent will be publicized eighteen months after the date of its application.  Therefore, the statistics of WIPO report is based on the number of invention applications publicized by all the member countries.

 

2006-10-25

2006-10-25