According to the report published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Tuesday (local time), China was ranked No. 1 with 825,136 patent applications or 32.1 percent of the total, followed by the United States (571,612 filings or 22.3 percent), Japan (328,436 or 12.7 percent), South Korea (204,589 or 7.9 percent) and EU (147,987 or 5.8 percent).
"The gap between China and the other (patent) offices has widened considerably since 2011, when China’s State Intellectual Property Office became the world’s top office in terms of patent filings received," the WIPO, a specialized agency of the United Nations, said.
China (+26.4 percent) saw the fastest growth in filings, followed by Australia (+12.7 percent) and South Korea (+8.3%), the report said. Japan suffered a 4.2 percent decline, while Italy (-1.1%), Spain (-6.6%) and the United Kingdom (-1.3%) received fewer applications in 2013 than in the previous year.
Computer technology accounted for 7.6 percent of the total filings worldwide, followed by electrical machinery (7.2 percent), measurement (4.7 percent), digital communication (4.5 percent) and medical technology (4.3 percent), it said.
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
