Huawei Leads Asian Domination Of U.N. Patent Applications In 2018

Huawei led the pack with Asia accounting for more than half of the international patent applications at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) last year, WIPO said on Tuesday

Huawei, which has been under pressure since the United States demanded its allies bar Chinese vendors from participating in building 5G networks due to national security concerns, made 5,405 patent applications to the U.N. body, up from 4,024 in 2017.

“It’s an all-time record by anyone,” WIPO director general Francis Gurry told a news conference.

WIPO oversees international treaties governing patents, trademarks and industrial designs. Its annual report on the applications it receives – a subset of all intellectual property filings globally – gives an early snapshot of the trends.

Asia-based filings accounted for 50.5 percent of the total applications received, Gurry said.

“Historically, this is really quite extraordinary,” he said. “Historically, this is a momentous occasion, this is something that is really a very, very significant result.”

The second-biggest user of the WIPO international patent system in 2018 was Mitsubishi Electric with 2,812 filings, followed by Intel with 2499.

Although inventors in the United States filed more applications than in any other country, China looks set to take the top place this year or next, after a meteoric rise over the past quarter century.―Reuters