The modern stage of economic development is characterized by the spread of innovations, the rapid development of systems for the protection and protection of intellectual property (IP). Now information, the latest technologies have become more valuable than gold and oil. IP has long ceased to be just protection against copying. Today, it is a powerful capital, the main force of development and a tough tool of global competition. The position of any country in the world increasingly depends on how successfully it is able to transform scientific discoveries and inventions into new technologies, products and economic growth. For this, legal, economic and organizational mechanisms to support innovation should work effectively.
A number of countries, such as China, Japan, and Korea, have become the leading countries in the world due to the fact that IP has become the main force of development. The development of IP in these countries took place thanks to the development of education and science, support of scientific research. These countries have become technological leaders largely due to systemic support for science, education and innovation. And the main role in this is played by intellectual property, which protects technical ideas and makes it possible to transform the results of scientific activity into an economic effect.
Protection of IP has become a key point of innovative activity, as it allows the return of income from investments in science and profit from innovations. At the beginning of the 21st century, IP began to play an important role in creating profits and developing competition. Now, IP has become a means of stimulating competition, promoting innovation processes. Modern processes of globalization unfold in the conditions of a new economy, where information and the latest technologies become the main factor of production, the importance of IP as a commodity and capital increases. In the global economy, IP is significant capital. Under such circumstances, a country's place in the world increasingly depends on an effective institutional system of IP protection, in which economic, legal and organizational mechanisms are in close interaction, ensuring innovative development.
According to the WIPO report "World indicators of activity in the field of intellectual activity" for 2024, inventors filed the largest number of applications for patents for inventions. 3.7 million applications for patent registration under national and international procedures were submitted, 4.9% more than a year earlier. China, the USA, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Germany are the leaders in the total number of submitted applications for invention patents (Table 1), that is, the countries that are the leaders in terms of investments in research and development. China plays the role of the undisputed world leader in patenting. More than 49% of the total applications were filed by Chinese inventors. China is 3.03 times ahead of the second-placed United States and 30.85 times ahead of Germany. And if China increased the number of applications by more than 150,000 compared to the previous year, the USA only by almost 5,000. Unfortunately, WIPO does not keep separate statistics for the EU, using data only for EU member countries. And of these, Germany is the only one in the top ten with 59,262 applications. And in the top twenty are Great Britain (11) with 18,952 applications, France (14) with 14,129 applications, Italy (18) with 10,308 applications. At the same time, Asian countries make up more than half of the top twenty.
Ukraine in this WIPO ranking took 35th position with the number of applications — 2,559. Moreover, it should be noted that in recent years, the figure of up to 3,000 applications per year for inventions has become commonplace for Ukraine.
Table 1
Positioning of the world's leading countries by the number of submitted of patent applications in 2024
No. пп | Country | Applications by offices | |||
Total | residents | Non-residents | Changes compared to previous year | ||
1. China 053 | 150 353 | ||||
2. | USA 972 | ||||
3. Japan 686 | 6,722 | ||||
4. | Republic of Korea | 246,245 | 195,786 | 50 459 | 2,935 |
5. India 940 | 14,859 | ||||
6. | colspan="1" rowspan="1">|||||
7. | colspan="1" rowspan="1">|||||
8. | colspan="1" rowspan="1">|||||
9. Russian Federation 26,698 colspan="1" rowspan="1"> 6 | |||||
10. | Brazil | 25,597 | 5,752 | 19,845 | 228 |
11. | United Kingdom | 18,952 | 11,105 | 7 847 | –1,011 |
12. Mexico colspan="1" rowspan="1"> 559 | |||||
13. | Hong Kong, Ave. China | 15,940 | 495 | 15,445 | –1 844 |
14. | colspan="1" rowspan="1">|||||
15. Singapore colspan="1" rowspan="1"> –346 | |||||
16. Indonesia colspan="1" rowspan="1"> 348 | |||||
17. | colspan="1" rowspan="1">|||||
18. | Italy | 10,308 | 9 120 | 1 188 | 685 |
19. colspan="1" rowspan="1">446 | |||||
20. | South Africa | 8899 | 350 | 8549 | –1,830 |
21. rowspan="1">122 | |||||
22. rowspan="1">–195 | |||||
23. Israel 8,262 colspan="1" rowspan="1"> –991 | |||||
24. Saudi Arabia 8,029 colspan="1" rowspan="1"> 945 | |||||
25. | rowspan="1">|||||
26. New Zealand 5,962 5,962 colspan="1" rowspan="1"> –297 | |||||
27. Philippines colspan="1" rowspan="1"> –318 | |||||
28. | colspan="1" rowspan="1">|||||
29. rowspan="1">195 | |||||
30. | rowspan="1">|||||
31. | rowspan="1">|||||
32. | rowspan="1">|||||
33. The Netherlands 3,047 colspan="1" rowspan="1"> –47 | |||||
34. rowspan="1">97 | |||||
35. rowspan="1">–352 | |||||
Total | 3,725,000 | 2,702 600 | 1,022,400 |
| |
Source: World Intellectual Property Indicators. Table A60. Patent applications by office and origin, 2024.
In 2024, the total number of applications under the PCT international procedure reached 273,900, which is 0.5% more than in 2023. China remained the leader with 70,160 applications, accounting for 25.62% of global applications. It was followed by the USA (54,087 applications), Japan (48,397), the Republic of Korea (23,851) and Germany (16,721). Ukraine took 43rd place in this rating (Table 2). That is, in filing applications under the PCT procedure, China was ahead of the USA by almost 1.3 times, and Germany, as the most active member of the EU in patenting, by almost 4.2 times. And if we compare the results of 2023 and 2024, then China demonstrated a growth rate higher than the global rate by 2.1%. With a 2.1% drop in applications in the US and a slight decline in Germany. In the number of applications filed under the PCT system, China increased filings by 633 applications, while the USA decreased by 1,533 applications.
Table 2
International patent applications by country of origin (PCT system), number in 2023 and 2024
Country | 2023 | 2024 | Growth, number |
1. China | 69,527 | 70,160 | 633 |
2. USA | 55,618 | 54,087 | -1531 |
3. Japan | 48,992 | 48,397 | -595 |
4. Republic of Korea | 22,277 | 23,851 | 1,574 |
5. Germany | 16,944 | 16,721 | -223 |
6. France 7,911 7,911 United Kingdom 5,567 Switzerland | 5,398 | 5,324 | -74 |
9. India | 3,725 | 4,552 | 827 |
10. Netherlands | 4,256 | 4,310 | 54 |
11. Sweden | 4,301 | 3,762 | -539 |
12. Italy | 3,104 | 3,099 | -5 |
13. Canada | 2,399 | 2,388 | -11 |
14. Finland | 1,540 | 2,004 | 464 |
15. Turkey | 1913 | 1985 | 72 |
16. Singapore | 1,811 | 1,771 | -40 |
17. Israel | 1,904 | 1,715 | -189 |
18. Australia | 1,496 | 1,572 | 76 |
19. Denmark | 1,536 | 1,539 | 3 |
20. Austria | 1,548 | 1,532 | -16 |
21. Spain | 1,465 | 1,528 | 63 |
22. Belgium | 1,342 | 1,310 | -32 |
23. Ireland | 769 | 729 | -40 |
24. Norway | 686 | 718 | 32 |
25. Russian Federation | 681 | 709 | 28 |
26. Brazil | 514 | 637 | 123 |
27. Saudi Arabia | 392 | 492 | 100 |
28. Iran | 350 | 425 | 75 |
29. Luxembourg | 309 | 396 | 87 |
30. Poland | 370 | 340 | -30 |
31. New Zealand | 278 | 286 | 8 |
32. Portugal | 224 | 239 | 15 |
33. Chile | 179 | 227 | 48 |
34. South Africa | 188 | 174 | -14 |
35. Hungary | 149 | 172 | 23 |
36. Liechtenstein | 171 | 166 | -5 |
37. Mexico | 149 | 163 | 14 |
38. Thailand | 144 | 163 | 19 |
39. UAE | 135 | 160 | 25 |
40. Czech Republic | 179 | 148 | -31 |
41. Slovenia | 95 | 122 | 27 |
42. Malaysia | 127 | 121 | -6 |
43. Ukraine | 90 | 112 | 22 |
This indicator reflects not only the inventive activity of the country, but also its ability to transform scientific developments into a competitive export product.
South Korea showed the greatest increase among the leading countries (+1574 applications), while the USA and Japan, on the contrary, showed a decrease. Across Europe, the picture was mixed, with growth in France and Finland combined with decline in Germany, Sweden and Italy.
But the true scale of China's success becomes clear when looking at the dynamics of PCT applications for the world's top five countries over the past three decades. Table 3 shows China's extraordinary efficiency in building a system of intellectual property protection and stimulating invention. In the 30 years since 1994, China has increased the annual number of PCT applications by 661.9 times, Korea by 124.2 times, Japan by almost 21 times, Germany by 3.94 times, and the United States by 3.62 times.
Table 3
Dynamics of PCT applications for the five main countries of origin, 1994-2024
Year | USA | China | Japan | Germany | Republic of Korea | |
1994 | 14,949 | 106 | 2,305 | 4,244 | 192 | |
1996 | 20,829 | 123 | 3 939 | 6 265 | 306 | |
1998 | 27,958 | 346 | colspan="1" rowspan="1">782 | 9,569 | 12,581 | 1,582 |
2002 | 41,316 | 1,015 | 14,061 | 14,324 | 2,520 | |
2004 | 43,395 | 1,707 | 20,268 | 15,216 | 3,555 | |
2006 | 51,301 | 3,930 | 27,024 | 16,734 | 5,946 | |
2008 | 51,667 | 6,119 | 28,763 | 18,856 | 7,902 | |
2010 | 45,089 | 12,304 | 32,216 | 17,560 | 9,604 | |
2012 | 51,857 | 18,621 | 43,523 | 18,749 | 11,787 | |
2014 | 61,489 | 25,542 | 42,381 | 17,983 | 13,118 | |
2016 | 56,593 | 43,092 | 45,210 | 18,308 | 15,555 | |
2018 | 56,16253,463 49,704 920 | |||||
2020 | 58,433 | 68,928 | 50 583 | 18,491 | 20,050 | |
2022 | 58 839 | 70,016 | 50,529 | 17,464 | 22 013 | |
2024 | 54 087 | 70 160 | 48 397 | 16,721 | 23,851 |
The distribution of PCT applications by type of applicant is important for understanding the effectiveness of the national policy on stimulating inventions and the development of the intellectual property protection system (sectors of the economy): business sector, individual, university sector and the sector of government and public research organizations (PRO).
The data of Table 4 show certain changes in the worldwide distribution of PCT applications by type of applicant in 2010-2024: the specific weight of the business sector increases, the activity of individual applicants decreases several times, the activity of applicants from the sector of government and public research organizations slightly decreases, the activity of university applicants has an oscillatory character. Which indicates a higher level of research, which requires more capital investment in their implementation and the inability of individual applicants to carry out such research due to lack of necessary funds. As well as the growing interest of business in conducting research, preparing and submitting applications for patents and obtaining profit from the use of patents.
Table 4
Dynamics of filing applications under the PCT procedure by type of applicant (sector) in 2010-2024
Year | Business | Individual | University | colspan="1" rowspan="1">2.6 |
2011 | 83.4 | 8.7 | 5.3 | 2.6 |
2012 | 84.4 | 7.8 | 5.3 | 2.5 |
2013 | 85.0 | 7.6 | 5.0 | 2.3 |
2014 | 85.1 | 7.8 | 4.8 | 2.3 |
2015 | 85.1 | 7.6 | 5.1 | 2.2 |
2016 | 85.3 | 7.5 | 5.1 | 2.0 |
2017 | 84.8 | 8.0 | 5.3 | 2.0 |
2018 | 85.3 | 7.5 | 5.3 | 1.9 |
2019 | 86.4 | 6.2 | 5.6 | 1.9 |
2020 | 86.7 | 5.5 | 5.8 | 1.9 |
2021 | 87.1 | 5.0 | 6.1 | 1.8 | colspan="1" rowspan="1">
2023 | 88.2 | 3.9 | 6.1 | 1.8 |
2024 | 89.1 | 3.5 | 5.6 | 1.8 |
There is a significant difference in the distribution of PCT applications by type of applicant by country depending on the level of development and income group (table. 5) 25px;">
Year
Business
Individual
University
PRO
High-level economies of income
1. USA
86.6
3.5
8.7
1.2
2. Japan
3. Republic of Korea
84.9
4.8
7.6
2.7
4. Germany
92.7
2.2
2.4
2.6
5. France
88.7
2.0
2.4
6.9
6. United Kingdom
87.4
4.1
7.9
0.6
7. Switzerland 94.7 colspan="1" rowspan="1">
8. Sweden 98.6 rowspan="1">
9. Netherlands
93.5
1.1
4.0
1.4
10. Italy
84.0
8.7
5.4
1.8
11. Canada
80.3
9.5
7.9
2.3
12. Israel
78.8
8.1
12.2
0.9
13. Finland
96.5
0.6
2.9
14. Singapore
15. Australia
74.5
11.9
10.3
3.3
16. Austria
17. Denmark 91.7 colspan="1" rowspan="1">
18. Spain
colspan="1" rowspan="1">19. Belgium
88.6
1.7
5.8
3.9
20. Ireland
92.3
2.9
4.8
-
Middle-income economies
1. China
2. India
63.5
28.1
3.8
4.6
3. Turkey
4. Brazil
62.8
35.7
0.4
1.1
5. Iran
3.6
96.4
-
6. South Africa
39.0
37.4
20.9
2.7
7. Mexico
32.7
60.0
6.7
0.7
8. Thailand
67.6
20.9
11.5
-
9. Malaysia
78.2
17.6
4.2
10. Ukraine
11. Colombia
37.9
51.7
10.3
-
12. Morocco
13. Mauritius
100.0
-
-
-
14. Peru
31.0
20.7
48.3
15. Serbia
16. Argentina
23.1
42.3
7.7
26.9
17. Indonesia
73.9
13.0
13.0
-
18. Egypt
13.0
87.0
-
-
19. Kazakhstan
38.1
52.4
9.5
-
20. Vietnam
47.4
52.6
-
-
For countries with a high level of income, the specific weight of applications by business sector inventors is 80-98.6%. Individual filings are significant in Spain (18.3%), Australia (11.9%), Canada (9.5%) and Italy (8.7%). Relatively high activity of filing patent applications is shown by inventors in the university sector of Singapore (14.2%), Israel (12.2%), Spain (11.9%), Australia (10.3%) and the USA (8.7%). Inventors from Singapore (6.7%), France (6.9%) and Spain (6.7%) are most active in filing applications in the sector of government and public research organizations. Middle-income countries have a heterogeneous distribution of applications by sector. Thus, in China, more than 90% of applications are submitted by business sector inventors. In Ukraine, more than 70% of applications are submitted individually. The reasons for the predominant individual submission of applications in Ukraine may be: the exclusion of business from the use of science for its development, the focus of business mainly on trade operations, the orientation of science not on the implementation of specific results, but on patenting for the sake of the scientific process, patenting by individuals of the results of scientific activity within the framework of the performance of official tasks using the equipment of scientific institutions when working in scientific institutions.
The dominance of business in international patenting is especially noticeable at the level of individual companies (table 6). The list of world leaders in patenting today is mainly formed by Asian and American technology giants. Among the 25 companies that filed the most international patent applications in 2024, eight are from Japan, seven from China and four from the United States. And the first ten companies include 4 Chinese, 2 Korean, 2 Japanese and only 1 each from the USA and Sweden.
Europe is represented much more modestly: only one company from Germany and Sweden entered the top 25. For several years in a row, the top lines of the rating have been occupied by Chinese Huawei and South Korean Samsung Electronics. This indicates a weakening of the position of European business in global technological competition compared to the times when companies such as Siemens, Philips and Bosch were among the world leaders in patenting, and Siemens also led these rankings for many years in a row.
Table 6: Top 25 companies of the business sector by the number of patent applications submitted under the PCT procedure, 2024 25px;">
No
Company
Country
Filing applications for PCT
2022
2023
2024
1
HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD.
China
7,689
6,494
6 600
2
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
Republic of Korea
4 387
3,924
4,640
3
QUALCOMM INCORPORATED
USA
3,855
3,410
3 848
4
LG ELECTRONICS INC.
Republic of Korea
1 793
1,887
2,083
5
CONTEMPORARY AMPEREX TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD. LIMITED
China
266
1 799
1 993
6
BOE TECHNOLOGY GROUP CO.,LTD
China
1,884
1,988
1 959
7
MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORPORATION
Japan
2 320
2 152
1 956
8
BEIJING XIAOMI MOBILE SOFTWARE CO., LTD.
China
913
1,603
1,889
9
TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON (PUBL)
Sweden
2 158
1,863
1,886
10
NIPPON TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE CORPORATION
Japan
1,884
1,760
1,877
11
ZTE CORPORATION
China
1 479
1 738
1,851
12
PANASONIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CO., LTD.
Japan
1,776
1,722
1,718
13
LG ENERGY SOLUTION, LTD.
Republic of Korea
1 186
1 423
1 452
14
GUANG DONG OPPO MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORP., LTD
China
1,963
1,766
1,252
15
NEC CORPORATION colspan="1" rowspan="1">
Japan
1,428
1,592
1,241
16
MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC
USA
1 271
1 350
1 237
16
ROBERT BOSCH CORPORATION
Germany
1 290
1 307
1 237
18
GOOGLE INC.
USA
830
903
1 236
19
VIVO MOBILE COMMUNICATION CO., LTD.
China
1 515
1 631
1 212
20
APPLE INC.
21
SONY GROUP CORPORATION
Japan
1 513
1 433
1 134
22
NTT DOCOMO, INC.
Japan
764
1,016
976
23
MURATA MANUFACTURING CO., LTD.
Japan
1,043
1 051
867
24
TENCENT TECHNOLOGY (SHENZHEN) COMPANY LIMITED
China
690
832
25
FUJIFILM CORPORATION
Japan
1 181
826
804
World experience shows that patent activity is not only an indicator of a country's scientific potential, but also the result of effective interaction between science, education, the state and business. China, South Korea, Japan and the USA demonstrate different models of economic development, but they have one thing in common: business plays a key role in the creation and commercialization of new technologies. That is why these countries occupy leading positions in the field of international patenting and form a significant part of the world technological order.
The example of China is especially indicative. Over the past three decades, the country has not only become a world leader in the number of patent applications, but has also created a system in which intellectual property has become one of the key tools of economic development. High patent activity does not automatically guarantee future success, but it indicates the country's significant scientific and technological potential and readiness to compete on global markets.
Ukraine is gradually losing ground in global technological competition not only due to insufficient funding of science. Another problem is that scientific developments rarely translate into new products, technologies or businesses. Business has little interest in the implementation of research results, and the system of evaluation of scientific activity is largely focused on the number of publications, "sophisticated" articles, and not on the commercialization of intellectual property, which leads to the substitution of the use of specific results of scientific activity in the form of patent licenses for "sophisticated" publications. Absence in the results of scientific activity, which are included in the results of state certification, even the concept of "patent license" with dominance in the evaluation scores of "scopus" publications
In addition, Ukrainian patenting is largely concentrated in traditional industries - metallurgy and mechanical engineering, while information technologies, biotechnology and new materials are increasingly becoming global drivers of innovation. The situation is also complicated by the practical destruction of branch science, as the main producer of IP, and the lack of specialists capable of turning a scientific idea into a finished technology or product.
It is on whether Ukraine will be able to establish a connection between science and economy that its place in global technological competition will largely depend.
An analysis of the development of IP in the world shows China's undeniable advantage over other countries in the world in patenting industrial property objects, which can position China as a technological world leader. And since IP can be considered as an indicator of future economic development, China already has the prospects of a powerful economic state for a number of years to come.
Volodymyr Haustov, Scientific Secretary of the State Institution "Institute of Economics and Forecasting of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine".
