This year’s World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPI) report has been issued by WIPO recently. The report reveals “growth” in global intellectual property filings with 3,4 million patent applications, 13,9 million trademark applications and 1,5 million industrial design applications in total in 2021.
According to the report, China is the leading country in all 3 major types of IP (as it was in 2020): 52.1% of total trademark applications, 46.6% of total patent applications and 53.2% of total industrial design applications of the world in 2021 were filed in China.
(Source: World Intellectual Property Indicators 2022 - WIPO)
Türkiye – again – ranks within the top countries of global patent, trademark and design application counts in 2021. According to WIPO statistical data, Türkiye’s rankings are 6th in global trademark application counts and 5th in global industrial design counts in 2021 (covering resident & abroad origins).
Now let’s look a bit deeper into this year’s World Intellectual Property Indicators report.
Global Trademark Filings and Türkiye
Although 13,9 million trademark applications were filed as worldwide in 2021 -which also reveals an increase of 4% in trademark filings- however, this increase is exactly lower than the rate of 16.4% which occurred in 2020. This could be resulted because of the ongoing global economic slowdown.
China is the top IP office for the global trademark applications with a class count of around 9.5 million. The number of class count for United States (USPTO) is 899,678 as it is in the second place. The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) with 497,542 trademark class count placed in the third rank in 2021. India with 488,526 trademark class counts and the UK with 450,815 class counts follows the first 3 countries.
(Source: World Intellectual Property Indicators 2022)
As a side note:
These trademark statistics are compiled basing on WIPO’s “class count” system related to trademark filings. So that what is “class count”?
A trademark application may refer to different classes of goods or services. Many offices use the Nice Classification, an international classification of goods and services for registering trademarks and service marks. Applications received at these offices are classified according to one or more of the 45 Nice classes. Some offices allow single-class fling only, meaning applicants have to file a separate application for each class. Others permit multi-class flings, enabling applicants to file a single application in which a number of classes can be specified. To improve international comparisons of the numbers of applications received, it helps to compare class counts across offices. Class counts are also used to make trademark registration internationally comparable. This method for comparing offices began in 2004, the first year for which complete class count data are available (Source: WIPO World Intellectual Property Indicators report 2021).
Some key points for the global trademark filings in 2021 can be summarized as:
- The largest increases in trademark applications were seen in the UK (+61,8%), Brazil (+32,3%), Mexico (+22,7%) and Canada (+19,5%), followed by Türkiye (+19,4%), Italy (+18,5%) and Australia (+16.4%).
- 9 of the top 20 offices of global trademark filings in 2021 were in either low- or middle-income countries
- Trademark applications by residents (at their home country or regional office) accounted for 84% of global filing. The remaining 16% associated with non-resident trademark applications.
- High number of trademark applications filed domestically by residents in China.
- Non-resident applicants only accounted for between about 3–9% of total trademark filings in China and Türkiye.
- Applicants from Germany filed trademark application class count of 2,6 million in 2021 (as the grates number of applications abroad). Germany is followed by applicants from China (2 million) and applicants from the US (1.6 million).
According to the report, the total number of trademark application class count of Türkiye is 434,406 in 2021. This reveals the share of Türkiye in the annual increase in global trademark filings as 7,4%.
The rate of the increase in trademark applications in Türkiye occurred as +19.4% in 2021. Türkiye ranks the 6th place in the global trademark application class count in 2021.
(Source: World Intellectual Property Indicators 2022)
The report also shows that resident trademark filings overwhelmingly drove the higher annual growth rate of trademark application class count in Türkiye in 2021.
Germany-based applicants filed the largest volume of non-resident trademarks received by the TURKPATENT (16.1%) in 2021.
When we review the WIPI report according to the Int’l classification of goods and services (NICE), we see that classes related to “business services” were the most selected items in trademark applications in Türkiye (23.3%) in 2021.
Türkiye also recorded a high number of active trademarks (1,343,048) which are in force as of 2021.
Global Patent Filings and Türkiye
World Intellectual Property Indicators report 2022 reveals that 3,4 million patent applications were filed in 2021 as globally. This number shows us the increase rate of global patent applications as 3,6% in 2021 (compared to 2020).
When we look at the top 20 countries for the patent filings; China is ranking the first place by receiving 1,59 million patent applications in 2021 and it is followed by US with 591,473 patent applications. The third rank is Japan which is having 289.200 patent applications. South Korea (237,998 patent filings) and European Patent Office (188,778 patent filings) are following the first 3 places in 2021.
(Source: World Intellectual Property Indicators 2022)
Some key points for the global patent filings in 2021 can be summarized as:
- The IP offices of the top 5 countries together accounted for 85.1% of the world total patent applications in 2021.
- Patent application filings in China grew by 5.9% in 2021. Resident applicants accounted for 9 in 10 new patent applications received by the IP office of China.
- 15 out of the top 20 countries for global patent filings received a greater number of patent applications in 2021 than in 2020.
- IP offices of countries in Asia received around 2,3 million patent applications in 2021 which is representing 67.6% of the world total patent application count in 2021.
- US-based applicants filed the biggest number of patent applications “abroad” with 247,609 filings in 2021. This is followed followed by Japan based applicants with 190,399 filings abroad and China based applicants with 111,905 patent filings abroad.
- Patent applications related to computer technology is the most frequently featured technology in published applications worldwide (10.2% of world total).
- Among 10 selected offices by WIPO; Germany, Türkiye and the US granted patents for under 50% of all patent applications processed in 2021.
- The total number of Utility Model applications worldwide declined by 2.5% in 2021.
According to WIPI report 2022, the total number of patent applications (covering office and origin) in Türkiye is 8,476 in 2021. This shows that 318 more patent applications were filed in 2021 (including resident and non-resident) compared to 2020 in Türkiye. So that Türkiye ranks in the 22nd place according to the patent application count in 2021.
(Source: World Intellectual Property Indicators 2022)
Resident patent filings were responsible for almost all the increase seen in patent filings in Türkiye in 2021. It is also seen that patent filings in Türkiye are mostly related with transport technology (8.4%) in 2021.
The proportion of withdrawn or abandoned patent applications in Türkiye was 53.7% in 2021.
Türkiye with the ratio of 24.2% is among the largest proportion of inventors who were women among the top 20 origins in 2021.
Despite the global decline in utility model applications, Türkiye has recorded +23.8% growth in utility model applications in 2021.
Global Industrial Design Filings and Türkiye
According to World Intellectual Property Indicators report 2022, 1,2 million industrial design applications were filed worldwide which represents an increase of 6.8% compared to 2020.
The office of China received 805,710 designs in applications in 2021 which is the first ranking of global industrial design applications in 2021. It was followed by EUIPO with 117,049 design applications. The third ranking is UK with 74,781 design applications.
(Source: World Intellectual Property Indicators 2022)
Here are some key points for the global industrial design applications in 2021:
- The strongest growth of industrial design application filings was seen in the UK (+128.5%), India (+67.6%) and Mexico (+38.4%).
- The three offices with the most decreases of industrial design filings were Germany (–9%), Thailand (–2.3%) and the Republic of Korea (–2.2%).
- China received 53.2% of all designs contained in applications filed worldwide.
- Designs contained in resident applications amounted to 82% of the world total design count in 2021. Growth in resident designs applications was strong at India, the Russian Federation, Türkiye and the UK.
- Asian countries are accounted for 69.3% of all designs in applications filed worldwide in 2021
- Comparing the industry sectors for designs contained in industrial design applications filed in 2021, we see that the biggest shares were furniture and household goods (17.8%), textiles and accessories (14.7%), tools and machines (11.8%) and electricity and lighting (9.9%).
- The office of China accounted for 58% of all designs in applications registered worldwide.
According to World Intellectual Property Indicators report 2022, the total number of industrial design count in applications in Türkiye is 65,924 in 2021. So that Türkiye ranks in the 5th place in global industrial design counts in 2021.
(Source: World Intellectual Property Indicators 2022)
Growth in resident design applications is strong in Türkiye. Taking into consideration of gross domestic products (GDP) and populations of the countries, Türkiye (698) is one the highest resident design count per million population in 2021.
The report shows that “furniture and household goods” were accounted for a large proportion of the industrial designs filed in Türkiye (26.9%).
Conclusion...
As we saw almost the same trends in previous year’s World Intellectual Property Indicators report, global intellectual property activity continued to increase in 2021.
However, we can say that the global Intellectual Property activity is also being affected by the global economic slowdown in 2022 and we will probably see the consequences of this in the next year’s report.
References:
- Worldwide IP Filings Reached New All-Time Highs in 2021, Asia Drives Growth (wipo.int)
- IP Facts and Figures (wipo.int)
- Intellectual Property Statistics (wipo.int)