China drives stunning growth in global trademark applications, UN says
GENEVA: China was the driving force by a 30 per cent leap in global trademark applications in 2017 as innovation turns into the main battleground among competing world economies, the UN World Intellectual Property Organization said.
Figures issued by WIPO showed trademark applications hit 9.11 million last year while patent applications rose 5.8 per cent to 3.2 million, with 2018 data showing the trend was continuing, WIPO Director General Francis Gurry told a news conference.
Asia now accounted for 65.1 per cent of patent applications, 66.6 per cent of trademark applications, and 67.9 per cent of design applications.
“This is of course, driven mainly, but not exclusively by China,” Gurry said.
“Innovation is increasingly the battleground for economic advantage amongst the leading economies,” he said. “This is an extraordinary transformation that has occurred in a relatively short period of time.”
US President Donald Trump has hit China with a barrage of tariffs and a World Trade Organisation dispute, accusing it of stealing US innovation.
The European Union has provisional ly agreed rules to sc ru ti ni se Chinese investments to protect strategic EU technologies and infrastructure.
WIPO chief economist Carsten Fink said trademarks were usually filed when a new company was created or a new product was launched on the market, and were sometimes seen as a leading indicator of changes in the business cycle.
“When we received the data from intel lectual property property offices around the world, we were quite stunned by the high growth rate,” he said.
Gurry said China’s growth was ‘ prodigious’ at 54.4 per cent in a year but other countries also reported big rises in trade mark filings.
Applications grew by 12.6 per cent in the United States, by 24.2 per cent in Japan and by 24.1 per cent in Britain. — Reuters