Even as global filings for trademarks and designs dropped, innovators from around the world submitted 3.46 million patent applications in 2022, marking a third consecutive year of growth, according to the annual World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPI) report released by WIPO.

China, US, Japan, Republic of Korea and Germany were the countries with the highest numbers of patent filings in 2022. While innovators from China continue to file nearly half of all global patent applications, the country’s growth rate dipped for a second consecutive year from 6.8% in 2021 to 3.1% in 2022. Meantime, patent applications by residents of India grew by 31.6% in 2022, extending an 11-year run of growth unmatched by any other country among the top 10 filers.

Applicants based in China filed around 1.58 million patent applications in 2022, covering both domestic and foreign jurisdictions. China was followed by the US (505,539), Japan (405,361), the Republic of Korea (272,315) and Germany (155,896).

China (+3.1%), the Republic of Korea (+1.9%) and the US (+1.1%) filed more applications in 2022 than in 2021. In contrast, Germany (-4.8%) and Japan (-1.6%) filed fewer applications in 2022.

The majority of the top 20 origins – 13 out of 20 – filed a greater number of patent applications in 2022 than in 2021. The largest increases were in India, which filed 31.6% more application in 2022. Switzerland (+6.1%), China (+3.1%), Austria (+2.5%) and the UK (+2.5%) also reported robust growth in filings.

In 2022, an estimated 1.1 million industrial design applications were filed worldwide. These applications contained about 1.5 million designs, corresponding to a decrease of 2.1% on 2021. With 841,164 designs in applications filed, applicants residing in China were the most active in the world in terms of design count in 2022. They were followed by applicants from Türkiye (80,559), Germany (70,346), US (67,349) and the Republic of Korea (62,014). Together, these top five countries accounted for three-quarter (75.6%) of the global activity in 2022. Driven mainly by a rapid increase in filings by applicants from China, the combined share of the top five origins has grown by 4.6 percentage points over the last decade. Among the top 20 origins, only five saw a rise in design count in 2022. Türkiye (+31.4%) experienced the sharpest growth propelling it three positions higher in the global ranking within a year. Türkiye was followed by Brazil (+11.3%), India (+9.5%), Italy (+7.1%) and Switzerland (+3.6%).

An estimated 11.8 million trademark applications covering 15.5 million classes were filed worldwide in 2022. The number of classes specified in applications fell by 14.5% in 2022, marking the first annual reduction in application class count since 2009. The highest volume of filing activity[2] came from applicants based in China with a combined domestic and abroad application class count of around 7.7 million; followed by US applicants (945,571), those based in Türkiye (482,567), and applicants from Germany (479,334) and India (467,918). Filing from 14 of the top 20 countries of origin fell in 2022, many of which by more than 10%. Despite being the top origin of applications, filing by residents of China at both home and abroad shrank by almost 21%. Also, among the top five origins, filing emanating from Germany (-14.2%) and the US (-8.9%) likewise saw considerable declines.