“The recovery in international patent filings that we saw in 2010 gained strength in 2011,” said WIPO Director General Francis Gurry. “This underlines the important role played by the PCT system in a world where innovation is an increasingly important feature of economic strategy. It also shows that companies have been continuing to innovate in 2011 – reassuring news in times of persistent economic uncertainty.”
Attesting to the rapid growth of the PCT system, 2011 also saw the filing of the two millionth PCT application, by US-based mobile technology company Qualcomm.
Among the top filing countries, PCT applications from China (+33.4%), Japan (+21%), Canada (+8.3%), the Republic of Korea (+8%) and the US (+8%) saw the fastest growth in 2011. European countries witnessed a mixed performance, with Switzerland (+7.3%), France (+5.8%), Germany (+5.7%) and Sweden (+4.6%) experiencing growth, and the Netherlands (-14%), Finland (-2.7%), Spain (-2.7%) and the United Kingdom (-1%) seeing declines. The large middle-income economies of the Russian Federation (+20.8%), Brazil (+17.2%) and India (+11.2%) recorded double-digit filing growth.
The US with 48,596 filings remains the largest user of the PCT system, followed by Japan (38,888), Germany (18,568) and China (16,406). Switzerland ranks 8th with nearly 4000 filings.
More information on the WIPO website.
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