THE TRILATERAL OFFICES

Patent rights are recognized throughout the world. The most recent information on worldwide patent rights is available from the 2005 WIPO Industrial Property Statistics. At the end of the year 2005, more than 4.9 million patents were in force.

Patents in Force Worldwide in 2005

Approximately 79 percent of the total patents in force worldwide were granted in either the EPC contracting states, Japan or U.S. This share has been continuously declining over the last five years. This may be due to a larger number of other countries reporting as well as to the increase of patenting in these regions.

USPTO Production Information

Applications Filed	2005	2006
Plant Reissue Design Provisional	1,222 908 25,553 114,839	999 1,285 25,515 124,425
Total Utility GRAND TOTAL	390,733 533,255	425,967 584,373
First Actions	302,659	323,379
Grants (Total)	143,806	173,771
U.S. Residents Foreign Japan EPC States “Others” PCT Chapter II	74,637 69,169 30,341 22,182 16,646 11,427	89,823 83,948 36,807 22,043 25,098 7,124

PATENT APPLICATIONS FILED

The data in Fig. 3.1 below show the numbers of applications filed throughout the world. The PCT number in Fig. 3.1 is the number of international applications, rather than designations. Prior to 2004, applicants chose specific designations; starting in 2004 all contracting states were automatically designated, unless the applicant requests otherwise.

More than 1.4 million applications were filed in 2005. This represents the number of actions taken in 2005 to protect inventions around the world. This is an increase of 7.7 percent since 2004. Although many of these applications were filed according to national procedures (86.2 percent in 2005), the growth in filings is also contributed to by the ever-increasing use of supranational systems and in particular the PCT system.

Considering that not all the offices report filing statistics on a regular basis, one should be careful in interpreting these data. It can at least be concluded that there is a continuing tendency to use the patent systems in the world and that this does not seem to decline over time.

PATENT ACTIVITY BY BLOCS - FIRST FILINGS

The process of patent protection starts with the first filing, an initial patent application made to protect an invention or an innovation prior to any subsequent filing to extend the protection to other countries. The development of first filings in the major filing blocs is shown in Fig. 3.4.

The total number of first filings increased by 6.1 percent from 2004 to more than 975,000 in 2005. Japan recorded 359,382 first filings (about 37 percent of the whole), the highest number of first filings by bloc in 2005; although this was a decline from their 2004 total. The EPC contracting states had 126,095 first filings, slightly lower than their in 2004. The U.S. with 202,776 first filings showed a modest growth rate of more than 9 percent from 2004. The highest growth, more than 17 percent, was in the “Others” bloc. Both China and the Republic of Korea contributed a significant amount to “Others”. China made up 46 percent of “Others” and about 10 percent of the total for 2005. The Republic of Korea made up 47 percent of “Others” and about 10 percent of the total for 2005.

The total number of first filings in 2004 was 919,549. From these first filings, one year later, in 2005, Fig. 3.1 shows that 459,052 subsequent filings were filed. Thus on average each first filing led to almost 0.50 subsequent applications in the following year (was almost 0.46 for first filings in 2003). But Fig. 3.2 shows that this corresponds to almost 0.71 subsequent applications entering a grant procedure (was 0.74), and Fig. 3.3 shows that it corresponds to 5.04 subsequent requests for patent rights throughout the world (was 4.63). This illustrates the fact that greater usage of the international and regional patent systems allows for the filing of fewer applications for a broader geographical coverage of the protected inventions.

ORIGIN OF THE APPLICATIONS

Fig. 3.5 is tied to Fig. 3.1 but displays the worldwide patent applications according to area of origin. Japan remains the bloc from which the largest share of applications was originating, even though the share from the “Others” bloc is increasing. The number of applications filed by residents of Europe has declined since 2003. Applicants from the U.S. show a modest growth.