The Report, published on July 31, provides figures from 2006, the most recent year for which full statistics are available. It shows that patent filing worldwide reached 1.76 million applications in 2006 – a 4.9% increase on 2005.
The top five offices of filing are the US, Japan, China, South Korea and the European Patent Office, in that order. Applicants from Japan (514,047 applications), the USA (390,815), South Korea (172,709), Germany (130,806) and China (128,850) accounted for 76% of the total number of patent applications filed worldwide in 2006.
Patent activity also increased in developing countries, with India (24,505), Brazil (24, 074) and Mexico (15,505) all receiving more applications than in 2005.
The US, Japan and Germany remain the largest filers of patents in other countries. Overall the proportion of worldwide patent filings by non-residents has now reached 43.6% of all applications.
But this internationalization is restricted to a few countries: the combined share of worldwide non-resident patent filings by the eight largest countries of origin (the US, Japan, Germany, South Korea, France, the Netherlands, the UK and Switzerland) increased from 66% to 74% between 2000 and 2006.
For the first time since 1963 the USPTO received the largest number of patent applications (425,966), followed by the JPO. However, examiners in these offices are struggling to keep pace with the increase in applications, according to the report.
According to the report, the number of patents pending at the USPTO passed the million mark in 2006, reaching 1,051,502. The JPO also saw a “sharp rise” to 831,801, though this is partly due to a reduction to the time limit for request of an examination from seven to three years.
Newly elected WIPO head Francis Gurry said “while the report underlines promising trends in the use of the patent system, it also points to the need to find solutions to address the persistent backlogs in workload at many IP offices around the world”.
The report also breaks down applications by technology sector. Between 2001 and 2005 patents filings in computer technology, optics and semiconductors grew by 5.3%, 5.0% and 4.9% a year respectively, but there was a 2.7% decrease in biotech filings. There has also been a boost in filings for patents related to solar energy, fuel cells and wind energy.
