The World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) announced that, for the first time, more than half of all international patent applications were filed by Asian applicants in 2018. At a country level, US-based inventors filed the most applications, followed closely by China and Japan. For more information, see the announcement by WIPO.

WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) passed a record-breaking quarter-million (253,000) filing mark in 2018, a 3.9% increase over 2017, while WIPO’s Madrid System saw 61,200 international trademark applications, a 6.4% increase. WIPO’s Hague System for industrial designs saw 3.7% growth in 2018, reaching 5,404 applications.