WIPI 2025 Reports Growth Across Global Invention Patent, Trademark and Design Filings

The 2025 edition of the World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPI) has been published recently. According to the report, global invention patent applications and global design applications both continued to climb in 2024, and global trademark applications also began to rebound after two years of slowdown.

In 2024, global invention patent applications reached a record high of 3.7 million with a 4.9% increase over 2023, marking a rise for the fifth consecutive year and the fastest year-on-year growth since 2018. In terms of origin of applications, innovators from China filed the largest number of invention patent applications worldwide in 2024, amounting to 1,795,715. It was followed by the US (501,831), Japan (419,132), Korea (295,722), and Germany (133,485). By technology field involved in the applications, in 2023 (being the latest year for which complete data are available for the report), computer technology was the most frequently featured technology in published invention patent applications worldwide, accounting for 13.2% of the world total, which was followed by electrical machinery (7.2%), measurement (6.2%), digital communication (5.8%), and medical technology (4.9%).

Global design applications in 2024 saw an increase of 2.6% over 2023 to an estimated 1.22 million, containing therein about 1.56 million designs (up 2.2%). In terms of design count, China ranked top with its filed applications containing 906,849 designs, and Germany ranked second with 70,212 designs, followed by the US (66,855), Italy (63,668), and Korea (60,109).

Global trademark applications in 2024 totalled an estimated 11.7 million, a slight growth of 0.3%, signalling a positive return following two years of declining applications, while in terms of application class count, trademark filings saw a minor year-on-year decrease of 0.1% to 15.25 million. The highest volume of trademark filings measured in class count came from China (7,301,892), followed by the US (836,457), Russia (559,436), India (532,900), and Brazil (436,291).

WIPI, an annual IP statistical report published since 2009 by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), provides an overview of activities in the areas of invention patents, industrial designs, trademarks, utility models, microorganisms, plant variety protection, and geographical indications worldwide, on the basis of statistics from IP offices in approximately 150 countries and regions.