Asia accounts for about 70% of total patent applications filed globally.

WIPO's 2024 report shows that Asia dominates the number of patent filings, while Western tech giants lead the way in filing in key areas such as software, chips and medical technology.

The WIPO 2024 report shows that Asian patent offices account for the majority of patent filings, while Western tech giants in the software, chip and medical technology sectors are the most active filers.

Inventors filed a record 3.7 million patent applications in 2024, up 4.9% from 2023 and the fastest growth since 2018, according to new data from WIPO. Intellectual property offices in Asia now receive the majority of applications globally, with China alone accounting for nearly half of all filings by office. Computer technology has become the largest sector in global patent filings, accounting for about 13% of published applications and the fastest growing of any major technology sector over the past decade.

Looking at who is applying, there is a clear pattern: the volume story is Asian, and within the group of large Western corporations, it is Big Tech and related hardware companies, not Big Pharma.

China now files more patents than any other country, but the boom didn’t happen in a vacuum. For years, local governments at all levels provided cash subsidies for each application filed, driving businesses and universities to chase volume. Beijing is now looking to reverse this model, calling for an end to local patent subsidies by 2025 and reorienting the system toward high-value patents rather than easy utility and design patents.

Despite the shift, China remains the leader in the international channel. The number of patent applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in 2024 is expected to remain almost unchanged at 273,900, and China will continue to lead the way with more than 70,000 international applications, ahead of the US and Japan.

The innovation picture is very different from the market capitalization rankings, experts say. WIPO data shows that Asian patent offices now handle about 70% of all global applications, up from 60% a decade ago, and China alone handles nearly half of all office filings.

At the patent family level, the number of unique inventions has doubled since the late 2000s, and applicants based in China now account for nearly 70% of patent families by country of origin. However, foreign-oriented patent families, i.e. inventions protected in multiple markets, still lead the way, followed by Japan, Germany, and several other European economies .

Center for Science and Technology Communication

Source: https://mst.gov.vn/chau-a-chiem-khoang-70-tong-so-don-sang-che-duoc-nop-tren-toan-cau-19725111615023721.htm