China patents surge in 2009 as global filings fall

Japan, whose companies held four of the top 10 spots among company filings under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PERCENT), and South Korea also notched up small increases despite international economic and financial woes.

“This marks a strong performance by the east Asian countries,” said WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry. Companies in the region had clearly recognized that innovation offered one way out of the crisis, he added.

The United States easily kept its place as the top origin of all filings with a total of nearly 45,800 — nearly five times as many as China — but its overall total fell 11.4 percent. Second-placed Japan accounted for 29,827.

Among companies, the top filer was Japan's Panasonic Corp with 1,891, 162 more than in 2008. It pushed China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the 2008 leader, into second place with 1,847 filings, up 110.

WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organisation, launched the PERCENT in 1978 to enable companies to seek protection across a large number of countries in one filing and thereby boost the attraction of their inventions for global investors.

The United Nations agency's chief economist, Carsten Fink, said it was the first time since the system was set up that overall filings declined, going down from a total of nearly 164,000 in 2008 to some 155,900 last year.

Gurry said the drop in the richer countries came as no surprise due to the economic climate, with smaller firms having financing problems while larger ones cut back on research and development and found other savings in patent filing costs.

Among the five strongest sectors for filings through WIPO and the PERCENT, only electrical machinery and digital communication saw rises — of just 0.8 percent and 2.6 percent respectively.

The long-time leader, computer technology, was down 10.6 percent, and new pharmaceutical and medical technology patent filings also declined.

Big global companies with significant declines were Philips Electronics of the Netherlands which, although the fourth biggest global patent filer, was 256 down in 2009, and troubled Japanese car firm Toyota which dropped five places in the table with a decline of 296 in filings.

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