China remains the pacesetter in global trademark and design applications
The 2014 edition of the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s (WIPO) World Intellectual Property Indicators draws on data on IP rights from more than 100 countries and reports on IP filings through 2013.
WIPO reports that in terms of trademark filings, China (1.88 million class counts) saw by far the highest activity, followed by the United States (486,128) and the European Union/Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (324,749). Trademark filing activity in China has increased from nearly twice that of the United States in 2004 to around four times in 2013.
Other trademark and design-related findings include the following:
- Since 1995, trademark applications have more than doubled.
- Residents filing for protection within their jurisdiction accounted for almost three-quarters of global filing activity (by class count).
- The total number of trademark registrations issued in 2013 and the previous two years has hovered around 3 million, despite the annual increases in applications – suggesting that backlogs of unprocessed applications may be building up in some larger offices.
- Last year saw a more modest 2.5% growth in the number of industrial designs filed (attributed to a sharp slowdown in design filings in China, which accounted for 53% of the global total in 2013).
- In 2013, applications containing around 1.24 million designs were filed worldwide, comprising 1.06 million designs from residents and 180,000 from non-residents.
China trends
Figure 1: Trademark applications
Source: WIPO Statistics Database*
Figure 2: Industrial design applications
*The WIPO Statistics Database contains data provided by national/regional IP offices for WIPO’s Annual IP Data Survey and data compiled by WIPO during the application process of international filings through the Patent Cooperation Treaty, the Madrid System and the Hague System
Source: WIPO Statistics Database*
Table 1: IP filings at the top offices, by title
|
Growth (%): 2012-13 |
Share of world total (%): 2013 |
|||
|
Marks (class count) |
Designs (class count) |
Patents |
Marks (class count) |
Designs (class count) |
World |
6.4 |
2.5 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
China |
13.8 |
0.3 |
32.1 |
26.7 |
53.1 |
OHIM (EU office) |
3.6 |
5.3 |
- |
4.6 |
7.8 |
France |
10.3 |
- |
- |
4.3 |
- |
Germany |
- |
3.0 |
- |
- |
4.6 |
Japan |
- |
- |
12.8 |
- |
- |
South Korea |
- |
7.0 |
8.0 |
- |
5.6 |
Russia |
4.9 |
- |
- |
3.4 |
- |
Turkey |
- |
10.3 |
- |
- |
4.1 |
United States |
13.4 |
- |
22.3 |
6.9 |
- |