World Intellectual Property Indicators 2024

Global patenting activity reached new heights in 2023 as applications surpassed 3.5 million for the first time, marking the fourth consecutive year of growth despite a challenging macroeconomic environment, according to WIPO’s annual World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPI) report.

Interactive charts: 

China (1.64 million), the US (518,364), Japan (414,413), the Republic of Korea (287,954) and Germany (133,053) led global patent filings. Moving up a spot to sixth place, India (64,480) saw a 15.7% increase in patent applications, primarily driven by a strong increase in resident filings supported by India’s fast-growing economy.

India is also for the first time in the top 10 across the three main intellectual property (IP) rights included in the WIPI, with both patent and industrial design applications more than doubling between 2018 and 2023 and trademark applications increasing by 60%.

“Demand for IP rights is growing even in the face of an uncertain economic environment. In addition, this demand is increasingly indigenous. For example, the growth in patent filings has been driven by residents inside the countries themselves rather than from foreign innovators. With volume growing, the challenge still remains quality and the ability to translate IP filings into actual products and services.”

——WIPO Director General Daren Tang

Global industrial design filing activity [1] also grew in 2023, rising by 2.8% to 1.52 million designs, with seven of the top 20 countries seeing double digit growth. Trademark filing activity [2] totaled 15.23 million classes, reflecting a 2% decline on 2022, though the decrease was much less severe than in the previous year.

Continuing a longer-term trend, offices located in Asia accounted for 68.7%, 66.7% and 69% of global patent, trademark and industrial design filing activity in 2023.  Within Asia, IP filings are highly concentrated, with the offices of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea together accounting for 91.1%, 77.0% and 87.2% of Asian patent, trademark and industrial design filing activity last year.

wipo-pub-941-2024-en-world-intellectual-property-indicators-2024.pdf