In its report on global IP applications in 2015, WIPO sees USA still in lead but observes a shift towards Japan, South Korea and China. International patent applications filed under WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) were up by 1.7 percent to 218,000 in 2015, the slowest growth in five years, with the United States extending its long-standing position as the top source. China’s PCT applications exceeded 29,800 in 2015, an increase of 16.8 percent, ranking third for the third year behind the United States and Japan. The three top filing companies were China’s Huawei Technologies, followed by U.S.-based Qualcomm and China’s ZTE Corp. Huawei topped the list since 2013.
CAS news release, March 21, 2016