Huawei Technologies today said it has overtaken Panasonic of Japan as the largest patent applicant in 2014, according to patents filed under WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).
Huawei had 3,442 published PCT applications.
The second largest applicant is the U.S.-based chip vendor Qualcomm with 2,409 published applications, while China’s ZTE took third place with 2,179 PCT applications.
The U.S. was the primary country of origin for PCT filers in 2014. Applications in the U.S. increased 7.1 percent to 61,492 last year. Applications from Japan declined 3 percent to 42,459.
Applicants from China filed 25,539 applications registering an 18.7 percent annual increase.
Patent applications grew 18.7 percent in China. China was the only country to achieve double-digit growth in 2014. The U.K. recorded the second fastest growth rate at 9 percent, followed by the US 7.1 percent.
After China, India with 1,394 patent applications is the largest user of the PCT system among BRICS countries, followed by the Russian Federation with 890, Brazil 581 and South Africa 297.
Applications in Brazil declined 11.6 percent, the Russian Federations dipped 25.3 percent and South Africa fell 15.4 percent. Patent filings originating from India increased 5.6 percent.
Turkey with 802 patent applications, Malaysia 314 and Mexico 284 are other middle-income countries seeing considerable filing activity under the PCT.
Digital communication is accounting for the bulk of their total filings. In fact, digital communication accounted for two thirds of all PCT applications filed by Huawei, followed by computer technology and telecommunications, with each field accounting for 11 percent of the total.
Qualcomm had a similar PCT filing profile to that of Huawei, with digital communication accounting for two-fifths of their total applications, followed by computer technology 18 percent, audiovisual technology 11 percent and telecommunications 10 percent. For ZTE, digital communication accounted for slightly over three-fifths of all filings, followed by computer technology 14 percent and telecommunications 13 percent.
Among the top 50 applicants, Huawei with 1,332 saw the largest increases in PCT filings, followed by Tencent Technology China 727 and Microsoft of the US 652. In contrast, Panasonic -1,157 and Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha of Japan -612 saw the largest declines.
Microsoft is the top applicant for computer technology, followed by Intel and Tencent Technology.
Together, China and the U.S. accounted for 87 percent of the total growth in patent filings under WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), which saw 215,000 applications in 2014, a 4.5 percent increase over the previous year.
Baburajan K
[email protected]
