US Again in 2015 Was Top Filer of International Patent Applications, WIPO Says

The U.S. in 2015 “extended its long-standing position as the top source of international patent applications,” the World Intellectual Property Organization said in a Wednesday report. International patent applications filed under WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) system grew 1.7 percent to 218,000 in 2015, setting a new annual record, WIPO said. “Innovators based in the U.S. have filed the largest annual number of international patent applications for 38 years running,” it said. “Still, large increases in patent-filing activity by China-based innovators accounted for much of the overall growth.” The U.S., with 57,385 international patent applications, remained the largest user of the PCT system last year, despite a 6.7 percent decline in the number of applications from a year earlier, it said. WIPO attributes the 2015 U.S. decline to “an unusually large number of filings in 2014" spurred by changes in the U.S. patent system under the America Invents Act, it said. In 2015, the U.S. was followed by Japan (44,235 PCT filings) and China (29,846) among the top international patent filers, WIPO said. Asia more than doubled its share of all PCT applications filed since 2005, reaching 43 percent of the total, it said.