China leading world's rights protection work

China continues to drive the world's development of innovation and intellectual property in various sectors, according to the World Intellectual Property Indicators 2016, unveiled by the World Intellectual Property Organization last week in Geneva.

"As policy-makers seek to invigorate growth around the world, it is encouraging to report that intellectual property filing activity saw healthy progress in 2015," said WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry. "While China continues to drive global increases, IP use grew in most countries in 2015, reflecting its increasing importance in a globalized knowledge economy."

The report said that innovators around the world lodged some 2.9 million patent applications in 2015, representing a 7.8 percent increase over 2014 and the sixth consecutive year of rising demand for patent protection.

Individuals and organizations in China filed more than 1.1 million patent applications last year, making the State Intellectual Property Office of China the first office to receive more than 1 million applications in a single year - including filings both from residents in China and from overseas innovators seeking patent protection in China.

The number nearly equals that of the next three offices combined: the United States, Japan and South Korea. These countries and the European Patent Office, which took fifth place, accounted for 82.5 percent of the world total in 2015.

Computer technology took the largest share of published patent applications worldwide, accounting for 7.9 percent, followed by electrical machinery and digital communication.

More than 1.2 million patents were granted worldwide in 2015, up 5.2 percent from 2014, the fastest growth rate since 2012. The report said the main reason for the growth is the increase of patents granted in China, totaling 359,316 in 2015, overtaking the US Patent and Trademark Office to become the largest office in terms of patents granted.

Meanwhile, roughly 6 million trademark applications, covering 8.4 million classes, were filed globally in 2015, increasing 15.3 percent year-on-year, representing the highest growth rate since 2000.

China, again, saw the highest trademark filing activity in that year, with 2.8 million applications, followed by the US, Europe, Japan and India.

Around 4.4 million trademark registrations covering 6.2 million classes were recorded worldwide in 2015.

In terms of industrial designs, professionals from across the world filed 872,800 applications in 2015, growing by 2.3 percent year-onyear. They contain 1.1 million designs, as some offices allow applications to contain more than one design.

China's IP authority received applications containing 569,059 designs, accounting for half of the world's total.

In addition, this year's report considered the gender of inventors listed in patent filings under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. The statistics showed that female inventors remained a minority, although women's participation in international patenting has increased over the past two decades.

The share of PCT applications with at least one female inventor increased from 17 percent in 1995 to 29 percent in 2015.

The total number of female inventors recorded in PCT applications increased from only 7,780 in 1995 to 81,316 in 2015, while male inventors recorded in applications stood much higher at 455,624 last year.