A press release by WIPO on 13th March, 2014 reveals that 2013 saw new records being broken when more than 200,000 international patent applications were filed in a single year, for the first time. Records were also broken in international trademark and industrial design filings.
International Patent Applications are filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). While the USA (with 57,239 applications) and Japan (with 43,918 applications) predictably filed the highest number of patent applications, India has emerged the 2nd largest user of the PCT system among lower and middle income countries (the first being China). India had filed 1,392 applications while China had filed 21,516. The top PCT applicant companies were all Asian, with Panasonic (2,881 applications), Zite Corporation from China (2,309 applications) and Huawei Technologies Ltd. from China (2,094 applications) constituting the top 3. There were no Indian companies in the top 50.
Under the Madrid System for International Trademarks, India had filed 41 applications in 2013, on par with the other ‘new’ Madrid country, Brazil , which had filed 46 applications. Among the new Madrid Members, India received the second-largest number of designations (1,916), after Mexico.
Under the Hague System for the International Registration of International Designs, the top three users were Switzerland, Germany and Italy. India has not yet acceded to this system.
