According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, the U.S. continues to lead international patent filings by a large margin. However patents arising from developing countries have risen rapidly particularly from China. Notably, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd, a major international telecommunications company based in Shenzhen, China, filed 1,737 PCT applications in 2008, the highest number of any one company in the world.
Keep in mind that the WIPO’s method does not take the effects of offshoring and outsourcing. An American company may use its Asian facility or an Asian vendor to develop the intellectual property, but then choose to file the international patent from the United States. This means that buried in the 53,521 American patents may be thousands where the bulk or all of the work was performed in Bangalore or Beijing. It also does not reflect the fact that much of the original work done in developing countries such as China or India, does not results in patents being filed and certainly not in international patents being filed.
Last updated: July 10th, 2024
