China on Pace to Overtake US as Biggest Filer of Global Patents Through WIPO

ZTE overtook Huawei as the biggest filer of international patent applications through the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2016, while Qualcomm came in third, WIPO said in its annual report Wednesday. Patent applicants based in the U.S. maintained their No. 1 ranking for the 39th year running, with nearly a quarter of the 233,000 applications filed globally -- a 7.3 percent increase from 2015 -- under WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Japan placed second with a 19.4 percent share, followed by China with 18.5 percent, WIPO said. Applications originating in China jumped 44.7 percent from a year earlier, WIPO said. If that trend continues, China will overtake the U.S. within two years as the largest user of the PCT system, it said. There also was strong 2016 growth in applications originating from Italy (up 9.3 percent from 2015), Israel (up 9.1 percent), India (up 8.3 percent) and the Netherlands (up 8 percent), WIPO said. But applications from Canada fell 17.3 percent for the second straight year of double-digit declines in filings, WIPO said. It cited declining applications from BlackBerry and Nortel.