World Intellectual Property Indicators

1 Economics & Statistics SeriesWorld Intellectual Property Indicators2016 Economics & Statistics SeriesWorld Intellectual Property Indicators 2016 Economics & Statistics SeriesWorld Intellectual Property Indicators20162 Except where otherwise indicated, this work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution IGO user is allowed to reproduce, distribute, adapt, translate and publicly per-form this publication, including for commercial purposes, without explicit per-mission, provided that the content is accompanied by an acknowledgement that WIPO is the source and that it is clearly indicated if changes were made to the original should not carry any official emblem or logo, unless they have been approved and validated by WIPO.

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4 WIPO, 2016 World Intellectual Property Organization 34, chemin des Colombettes, Box 18 CH-1211 Geneva 20, SwitzerlandISBN: 978-92-805-2805-3 Attribution IGO license (CC BY IGO)Photo credits: in Switzerland3 Table of contentsSPECIAL SECTIONPATENTSTRADEMARKSINDUSTRIAL DESIGNSPLANT VARIETIESADDITIONAL INFORMATIONF oreword 5 Acknowledgements 6 Further information 6 Key numbers 7 Overview of IP filing activity 8 Special section 11 Patents 21 Highlights 21 Standard figures and tables 30 Trademarks 75 Highlights

5 75 Standard figures and tables 83 Industrial Designs 111 Hig hlig hts 111 Standard figures and tables 117 Plant Varieties 143 Highlights 143 Standard figures and tables 147 Additional information 157 Data description 157IP systems at a glance 159 Glossa r y 161 List of abbreviations 168A nnexes 16945As policymakers seek to invigorate growth around the World , it is encouraging to report that Intellectual Property (IP) activity saw healthy growth in 2015.

6 Global patent filings grew by , and global trademark filings by As in previous years, China was the main driver of growth. From already high levels, patent ap-plications in China increased by , and trademark applications by Most other IP offices also recorded growth in patent and trademark filings. In particular, patent applications increased by at the European Patent Office, in the United States of America ( ) and in the Republic of Korea. Among the top five offices, only Japan saw a decline ( ) in patent filings. Trademark filing activity increased markedly in Japan and India, with growth rates of and , respectively.

7 The also registered strong growth of , as did the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) with growth of industrial design activity increased only mod-estly at in 2015, though this followed a decline of in 2014. The stood out, receiving more designs in 2015 than in 2014. Design activity in other offices was uneven, with double-digit growth in China, Hong Kong (SAR), India and the Islamic Republic of Iran but double-digit declines in the Russian Federation and 2016 edition of WIPO s World Intellectual Property Indicators documents these and many other develop-ments that shaped the global IP system in 2015.

8 This year s special theme presents new statistics on the gender of inventors listed in patent filings under WIPO s Patent Cooperation Treaty. It shows that women inven-tors are still a minority, even if female participation in international patenting has increased between 1995 and 2015. However, the share of female inventors varies across countries and technical fields, with the highest participation rates in the life science fields. Readers wishing to go beyond the statistics pre-sented in this report can use the statistics tools on the WIPO website ( ) especial-ly the IP Statistics Data Center and the Statistical Country , I would like to thank our Member States as well as national and regional IP offices for sharing their annual statistics with WIPO.

9 Their invaluable cooperation makes the World Intellectual Property Indicators GURRYD irector GeneralForeword6 Acknowledgements Further informationWorld Intellectual Property Indicators , 2016 was pre-pared under the direction of Francis Gurry (Director General) and supervised by Carsten Fink (Chief Economist). The report was prepared by a team led by Mosahid Khan; the team comprised Kyle Bergquist, Ryan Lamb, Bruno Le Feuvre, Julio Raffo, Gerard Torres and Hao Zhou, all from the Economics and Statistics in WIPO s Patents and Technology Sector and Brands and Designs Sector and staff from the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) offered valuable comments on drafts of the report at various stages in its Do Carmo Figueiredo and Caterina Valles Galmes provided administrative support.

10 Gratitude is also due to colleagues in the Communications Division leading the production of the report, especially to Toby Boyd for his editing input and Stephen Mettler for the report s design. Thanks go to staff in the Printing Plant for their resourcesThe electronic version of the report as well as all fig-ures and their underlying data can be downloaded at This webpage also provides a link to the IP Statistics Data Center, offering access to WIPO s statistical InformationEconomics and Statistics DivisionWebsite: : 0142015Gr ow t h (%)Applications worldwide2,680,9002,888,8007. 8 China9 28 ,17 71,101, States of America578,802589, ,989318, class counts worldwide7,426,9008,445, ,220,6632,828,2872 7.