AS per WIPO, Intellectual
property patent filings worldwide grew at their fastest pace in almost two
decades in 2012, driven by China.
The
UN World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said in its annual report
released yesterday the patent filings grew by 9.2 per cent last year, the
fastest growth recorded in the past 18 years, reaching an estimated 2.35
million applications filed.
Filings
have “sharply rebounded” since a 2009 decline, at the height of the financial
crisis, of 3.9 per cent, according to 2013 edition of the ‘World
Intellectual Property Indicators.’
“Following
the 2009 financial crisis, global intellectual property (IP) filings and
global economic output have followed diverging paths,” WIPO Director General
Francis Gurry said in a news
release.
“While economic recovery since the 2009 crisis has been uneven and has failed
to bring down unacceptably high levels of unemployment, IP filings have increased
at a faster rate than before the crisis.”
The report also shows that for the first time, China tops the ranking for
the largest number of patents filed at 560,681 – many of these in material
metallurgy technologies.
In addition, China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) last year accounted
for the largest number of applications received by any single office with 652,777
filings, a position it first assumed in 2011.
In trademarks, the total number of applications filed grew by 6 per cent to
6.58 million with the fastest growth reported in Turkey, at 24.1 per cent,
and China, at 16.5 per cent.
The numbers of industrial designs contained in applications also strongly
rebounded, according to the report, with the 17 per cent growth being the highest
since records became available in 2004. Russia recorded its fastest growth
in design counts for 2012, hitting 29.5 per cent.
The total number of plant variety applications reached a new record at 14,319,
but the growth rate of 1.8 per cent in 2012 was modest compared to 7.5 per
cent the previous year.
The European Union’s Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) received the highest
number of applications (2,868), followed by offices in China (1,583) and Ukraine
(1,281).
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