[photopress:us_patent.jpg,full,alignright]Patent filings in China increased by more than six times in the last decade, helping it make a dramatic leap in catching up to the world leaders in patent activity, according to the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). Mostly the patents were concerned with IT and peripheral devices.
More than 130,000 applications from Chinese and foreigners were filed with Beijing in 2004, the last year for which figures are available. This lifted China into fifth place globally, behind Japan and the US.
The Japanese continue to be the world’s greatest patent filers, responsible for four in five of the nearly 450,000 applications in the country during 2004, according to WIPO. They also filed 137,800 with foreign offices, the most of any nationality.
The US came in second, with 403,050 applications received, and filings made by American inventors in foreign countries, which stood at 124,600.