The World Intellectual Property Organization has just released their annual report on intellectual property. Let us see what is happening on the state of global trademark applications. As of September 2018, five offices account for 60% of the world trademark filing activity.
Fig. 1 World trademark filing activity
From the global trademark filling activity, most of all trademark filing is dominated by China at 46,3%. China now accounts for close to half of all global trademark filing activity, primarily from Chinese residents. US follows with 5% of all trademark filling activity, Japan at only 4.5%, European Union Intellectual Property Office 3,0%, Islamic Republic of Iran 2,9% and other offices in global 38,3%.
Fig. 2 Number of classes filed per office
The office of China has increase to 55.2% and positioned as the first ranked with classes count 5,74 million and followed by US office at a count of 613,931. China and US has been the top two office since 2000s but since 2007 China class count has grown from double until over nine times as much from US.
As measured in class counts of middle-income countries, Brazil and Mexico recorded high trademark filing activity. Brazil had higher trademark filling activity at 186,103 followed by Mexico at 151,771. South Africa is the lowest country that contributed to trademark filling activity 26,251, decreasing at 30.9% compared to 2016.
Fig. 3 Number of classes filed per office (middle income countries)
Trademark filing activity in countries compare with different filing systems (single-class versus multi-class) and economies size are also different . On this measure, smaller countries such as Chile and Switzerland rank higher than some large countries such as US and India with higher class counts in absolute terms.
Fig. 4 Number of classes filed per office (by economy size)
Based on Nice Classification, trademark application also can be attributed to 10 industry sectors. The highest volumes of trademark applications from four of these five origins is research and technology, business services or leisure and education. Agriculture and clothing were among the top three sectors for applicants from China, while health was a top sector for applicants based in the U.S.
Fig. 5 Trademark applications based on industry
Overall, the rise in world trademark applications is a sure sign of the growing awareness to protect one’s own intellectual property, and trademark owners’ desire to expand their business. Curious? Contact us for a brief trademark research and let us help you define the best trademark strategy for your brand.