Even amid tough economic conditions, patent applications worldwide rose sharply, with Korea posting the third-largest increase after China and India.
According to the Science and Technology & ICT policy and technology trends introduced on the 30th by the Korea Institute of Science & Technology Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) recently released its World Intellectual Property Indicators 2025 report, a comprehensive analysis of intellectual property statistics such as patents filed with major national and regional offices.
The report said global patent applications in 2024 reached about 3,725,000, up 4.9% from a year earlier. That is the highest growth rate since 2018.
By country, Korea's increase in patent applications was tallied at 7,523, ranking third after China (153,072) and India (12,274). Japan followed with an increase of 4,533. WIPO said that over the past five years, China, India and Korea have continued to make significant contributions to the overall rise in patent filings.
By office, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) received the most filings at about 1.8 million, up 9% from the previous year. It was followed by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) with 603,194, and the Japan Patent Office (JPO) with 306,855. The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) ranked fourth with 246,245, followed by the European Patent Office (EPO) with 199,402.
The top five offices accounted for 85.5% of global filings, up 3.5 percentage points from 10 years ago (2014). Among the top five offices last year, filings rose in China (9%), Japan (2.2%), Korea (1.2%) and the United States (0.8%), while the EPO fell slightly with a decrease of 27.
By region, filings received by offices in Asia totaled about 2.6 million, accounting for 70.1% of the global total.