The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) reported on the 2nd that in 2020, despite the huge human and economic losses caused by the new crown pandemic, the number of international patent applications submitted through the organization will continue to grow, with China and the United States taking the lead in patent applications, achieving annual growth.

According to the data, despite the impact of the epidemic, the global GDP is expected to decrease by 3.5% in 2020, but the number of international patent applications submitted through the framework of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) still increased by 4%, reaching 275900, the highest number of applications ever.

Among them, China once again became the country with the largest number of international patent applications under the PCT framework, with 68720 applications, a year-on-year increase of 16.1%. The United States and Japan ranked second and third with 59230 and 50520 respectively, followed by South Korea and Germany. Asian countries accounted for 53.7% of the total PCT applications, compared with 35.7% a decade ago.

In 2020, Huawei Technology Co., Ltd. will become the largest applicant with 5464 PCT applications for the fourth consecutive year. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. of Korea, Mitsubishi Electric Co., Ltd. of Japan, LG Electronics Co., Ltd. of Korea and Qualcomm Co., Ltd. of the United States followed.

Among the educational institutions, the University of California system continued to be the top with 559 applications, and MIT ranked second with 269 applications. Then came Shenzhen University, Tsinghua University and Zhejiang University. Among the top 10 universities on the list, five are from China, four from the United States and one from Japan.

In terms of international trademark applications, the largest number of international trademark applications submitted by the Madrid system of WIPO in 2020 is still the United States, with 10005, followed by Germany, China, France and the United Kingdom. Among the top 10 sources, China is the only country with double-digit growth rate of 16.4% in 2020. (reporter Liu Qu)