Record Number of International Patents Filed in 2005
Exactly 134,073 international patent applications were filed in 2005, breaking all previous records. This was a 9% increase from the number filed the previous year.
About one-third of these international patent applications were filed from the U.S. In addition to the high numbers of U.S. filings, South Korea and China also contributed heavily to the number of international patent applications filed last year.
The World Intellectual Property Organization attributes the increase due to the increasing “technological strength of these countries”. On another positive note, patents are increasingly filed more often by developing countries.
