The Patent Cooperation Treaty Yearly Review 2017, The International Patent System, was just published by the World Intellectual Property Organization, see here.
Here are some interesting nudgets about China:
“Applicants based in the U.S. filed the largest number of Patent Convention Treaty (PCT) applications in 2016 with 56,595, followed by applicants from Japan (45,239), China (43,168), Germany (18,315) and the Republic of Korea (15,560) (figure 11). China has posted double-digit annual growth rates in applications since 2002 and, if the current trend continues, it will overtake the U.S. within the next two years to become the largest user of the PCT System.”
The top-50 of published PTC applications in 2016 had five champions in the field of telecommunications, networking, display and e-commerce. For the first time ZTE takes over the top position from Huawei.
– ZTE (telecommunications equipment and systems) set a new record for the largest number of filings by an applicant in a single year with 4,123 published applications in 2016.
– Huawei Technologies C0., Ltd. (networking and telecommunications equipment), ranked no. 2, with 3,692 published applications.
– BOE Technology Co., Ltd. (supplier of display products and solutions), ranked no. 8, with 1,673 published applications.
– Shenzhen China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. (designs and manufactures liquid crystal display screens), ranked no. 16, with 1,163 published applications.
-Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (e-commerce company), ranked no. 34, with 448 published applications.