China Set To Take Over Top Spot For Patent Filings

China is on its way to becoming the world leader in international patent filings, and should overtake the top spot from the United States within three years, the UN said on Wednesday.

A record 243,500 international patent applications were filed last year, a hike of 4.5 percent from a year earlier, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) said in its annual report.

These patents "represent the best new technology that is arising in the world", WIPO chief Francis Gurry said in Geneva.

The US kept the top ranking, which it has held for the past four decades, with American-based companies and individuals filing 56,624 applications, or nearly a quarter of the global total.

But it was the rapid growth in international patent filings from China, which passed Japan to reach second place, that drove the global increase, WIPO said.

Chinese companies and individuals filed a total of 48,882 international patents last year, marking a hike of 13.4 percent from a year earlier, the UN agency said.

China, the only country to record double-digit growth in its patent applications in 2017, has posted growth higher than 10 percent every year since 2003.

"At current trends, [China] is projected to overtake the US within three years as the largest source of applications filed under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty," the agency said.

Two China-based telecoms companies topped the global ranking last year: Huawei Technologies, which filed 4,024 patents, and ZTE Corporation, which filed 2,965.

They were followed by Intel Corporation of the United States, with 2,637 patents and Mitsubishi Electric Corporation of Japan, with 2,521. (AFP)