Trend of IPR Applications

Filing trend:

Patent and utility model filings peaked (at 222,405) in 2015, and then the number continuously decreased for the following two years (216,597 in 2016 and 211,584 in 2017), and slightly bounced back in 2018 (216,224). Design applications have shown the same trend, with the graph showing a slight decrease from  67,954 applications of 2015 to 63,680 in 2018.

Meanwhile, trademark applications increased every year, and in particular, they amounted to 200,341 in 2018, when the number has exceeded 200,000 for the first time, with an increase of around 10% compared to 182,918 in 2017.

 

Reviewing applications by field, as of 2018, the fields in which patent applications were filed were computer engineering (66,826), chemistry (44,421), mechanical engineering (41,384), instruments (27,534), and others (22,032, furniture/gaming/other consumption goods/civil engineering, etc.). In particular, since 2007, when numerical values by field were initially identified by the KIPO, until 2018, electric engineering was the field that had the largest number of applications. Further, applications in electric engineering accounted for about one third (31.82%) of the total 209,992 applications for 2018.

In electric engineering, most of the applications were filed in electrical machinery/energy (15,565), computer technology (11,332), semi-conductors (11,101), and  E-commerce (10,300).

In chemistry, organic fine chemistry accounted for the largest part. Further, basic materials chemistry showed a decrease of over 100 applications from the previous year, while pharmaceuticals (4,967) and biotechnology (4,723) both rapidly grew compared to other fields.

Meanwhile, in machinery and instruments, transportation (10,137) is only field that maintained over 10,000 applications. It is noticeable that the applications in medical technology (9,527) increased by over 1,000 compared to the previous year and reached an amount similar to transportation.  In other fields, most of the fields, including special machines (7,946), machine tools (4,557), measurement instruments (7,893), optics (5,194), etc., saw a steady inflow of applications with a minimum of 2,250 applications (textile/paper machines) and with most at around 3,000 to 5,000 applications.

 

 

Due to the recently reinforced examination process of IPR applications, the rate of registration dropped from almost 70% to as low as 60% in 2016, which then rose to 65.20% in 2018. Utility model applications have the lowest registration rate among the four types of IPR applications. In contrast, design and trademark rights, which have a relatively short examination period, have higher registration rates of 87.2% and 81.7%, respectively.