WIPO has witnessed a growth of about 4.8% in the PCT application filings for the year 2010 despite USA’s dipping figures. Major contributors to the increased numbers for this time around are China (+56.2%), the Republic of Korea (+20.5%), and Japan (+7.9%). As per the provisional data released by WIPO, as many as 162,900 international patent applications were filed in the year 2010 as compared to 155,398 in 2009.

The names that are tagged with bigger numbers and those that are placed on top of the statistics list signal a change in the filing dynamics in PCT. From the following table released by WIPO, it is evident that North East Asian countries have achieved a tremendous rate of growth in the PCT filings and have jumped up the order overtaking most of the European countries while USA in spite of the downfall in the rate of filings, has managed to retain the top spot.

Ranking	Country	2009	2010 (estimate)	2010 %	2010 growth
1	United States of America	45,618	44,855	27.5%	-1.7%
2	Japan	29,802	32,156	19.7%	7.9%
3	Germany	16,797	17,171	10.5%	2.2%
4	China	7,900	12,337	7.6%	56.2%
5	Republic of Korea	8,035	9,686	5.9%	20.5%
6	France	7,237	7,193	4.4%	-0.6%
7	United Kingdom	5,044	4,857	3.0%	-3.7%
8	Netherlands	4,462	4,097	2.5%	-8.2%
9	Switzerland	3,671	3,611	2.2%	-1.6%
10	Sweden	3,567	3,152	1.9%	-11.6%

This development has been aptly described as a “meteoric rise of Northeast Asia” by WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry in a press conference.

Year 2010 also saw India’s recovery from the downfall in PCT filings instigated by the economic slump in the year 2009. Indian applicants have filed 1,109 PCT applications in 2010 as against 961 in the previous year.

Source: http://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2011/article_0004.html

Contributed by Sandeep Hegde