World Intellectual Property Indicators 2025: Highlights - Patents highlights

In 2024, innovators from around the world submitted a record breaking 3.7 million patent applications, up 4.9% on 2023 In 2024, innovators around the world filed 3.7 million patent applications, marking a 4.9% increase over 2023 and the fastest year-on-year growth since 2018 (figure 1.1). This robust growth is particularly notable given the challenging economic conditions of the past year. Following a 3% decline in 2019 – at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic – patent applications globally have risen for five consecutive years. A substantial increase in filings by applicants residing in China (at least 153,072 additional applications in 2024 compared to 2023), India (+12,274), the Republic of Korea (+7,523) and Japan (+4,533) was the main driver of growth in 2024. Furthermore, over the past five years, China, India and the Republic of Korea have consistently been the main contributors to the overall growth in patent filings. The worldwide filing of 3.7 million applications in 2024 comprised 2.7 million resident filings (72.6% of the total) and 1 million non-resident filings (27.4%). Resident filings grew by 6.8% in 2024 – the fastest rate of growth since 2016 – while non-resident filings remained stable. Over the past decade, resident filings have grown at a faster pace than non-resident filings, with average annual growth rates of 4.1% and 1.6%, respectively. In terms of volume, resident filings have risen from 1.8 million in 2014 to 2.7 million in 2024, whereas non-resident filings have increased more modestly, rising from 0.9 million to 1 million over the same period. It is notable that the substantial surge in resident filings has contributed to a significant drop in the global share of non-resident filings, which has decreased from 32.6% down to 27.4% over the past decade (figure A2). The long-term trend in global patent applications has been consistently upward, reflecting the accelerating pace of innovation worldwide. Between 2010 and 2024, filings have nearly doubled, rising 1.9-fold from just under 2 million to 3.7 million. China’s IP office received 1.8 million patent applications in 2024, more than three times the number submitted to the US Patent and Trademark Office The National Intellectual Property Administration of the People’s Republic of China (CNIPA) received 1.8 million patent applications in 2024, up 9% on 2023. (1)Patent applications data refer to invention patents and do not include utility model (UM) applications. UM applications data are reported separately (see figures A53–57). In the United States of America, invention patents are referred to as “utility patents,” which is not be confused with utility models. Since 2015, CNIPA has consistently received more than 1 million applications annually and is now rapidly approaching the two-million mark. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) – with 603,194 applications – ranked second, followed by the Japan Patent Office (JPO) (306,855), the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) (246,245) and the European Patent Office (EPO) (199,402) (figure 1.2). Together, these top five offices accounted for 85.5% of the world total in 2024, 3.5 percentage points higher than their combined share a decade earlier in 2014. There has, however, been a considerable change in individual office share during this period. China’s share of the world total has risen from 34.6% in 2014 to 49.1% in 2024. In contrast, all other offices within the top five have seen a decline in their share over the same period, with the USPTO recording the sharpest drop of 5.4 percentage points. The composition and ranking of the world’s top 11 intellectual property (IP) offices remained unchanged between 2021 and 2024. Likewise, the offices ranked 12th to 20th remained stable between 2023 and 2024, with two exceptions: Indonesia rose one place to 17th, while Türkiye entered the top 20, advancing from 23rd to 18th. This came at the expense of South Africa, which fell four places to 21st in 2024 (figure A7).