Huawei tops corporate patent applications in 2018: WIPO

Chinese telecoms giant Huawei Technologies was the top corporate filer of international patent applications in 2018, leading an Asia-based innovation surge accounting for over half of the applications submitted at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) last year, WIPO recently revealed.

“Asia is now the majority filer of international patent applications via WIPO, which is an important milestone for that economically dynamic region and underscores the historical geographical shift of innovative activity from West to East,” said WIPO Director General Francis Gurry.

WIPO statistics showed that 50.5 percent of all Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications filed in 2018 came from Asia, with Europe and North America accounting for about a quarter each.

US-based applicants filed 56,142 PCT applications, followed by applicants from China, 53,345, and Japan, 49,702. Germany and the Republic of Korea ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, with 19,883 and 17,014 applications.