On March 2, 2021, WIPO released the data of the international filings for patents, trademarks and industrial designs in 2020. China continued to lead in PCT and Madrid applications.
International patent applications filed via WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), which is one of the widely used metrics for measuring innovative activity, grew by 4% in 2020 to reach 275,900 applications – the highest number ever, despite an estimated drop in global GDP of 3.5%.
China (68,720 applications, +16.1% year-on-year growth) remained the largest user of WIPO’s PCT System, followed by the U.S. (59,230 applications, +3%), Japan (50,520 applications, -4.1%), the Republic of Korea (20,060 applications, +5.2%) and Germany (18,643 applications, -3.7%).
For the fourth consecutive year, China-based telecoms giant Huawei Technologies, with 5,464 published PCT applications, was the top filer in 2020. It was followed by Samsung Electronics of the Republic of Korea (3,093), Mitsubishi Electric Corp. of Japan (2,810), LG Electronics Inc. of the Republic of Korea (2,759) and Qualcomm Inc. of the U.S. (2,173). Among the top 10 filers, LG Electronics reported the fastest growth (+67.6%) in the number of published applications in 2020 and as a result it moved up from 10th position in 2019 to 4th position in 2020.
【Top PCT applicants】
【Top PCT Chinese applicants】
The University of California with 559 published applications continues to head the list of top applicants among educational institutions in 2020. The top 10 university list comprises five universities from China, four from the U.S., and one from Japan.
【Top PCT applicants by educational institution
【Top Chinese PCT applicants by educational institution】
(Note: PCT data are based on publication date.)
The number of PCT applications from several Chinese PCT applicants increased rapidly, especially Beijing Bytedance Network Technology Co., Ltd (BYTEDANCE) and Zhejiang University.
Compared with 2019, BYTEDANCE has increased its ranking of PCT published applications from 394th position in 2019 to 32nd position in 2020. In 2019, the number of PCT published applications was only 70. In 2020, the number of PCT published applications reached 719, which is about 10 times that in 2019.
Zhejiang University's ranking of PCT published applications in 2020 has increased 266 positions compared with that in 2019, ranking fifth among PCT applicants of universities and colleges. In 2019, the number of published PCT applications was only 69, and in 2020, the number of PCT published applications reached 209, which is about three times that in 2019. Data Source: https://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2021/article_0002.html