Taps Coogan – May 2nd, 2023

The following is reposted from Visual Capitalist:

Every year, the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) tracks hundreds of thousands of patents across industries.

These patents grant their inventors exclusive intellectual property rights over their creations. They encourage new ideas, spur scientific development, and lead to new technologies and entire sectors being born.

However, the number of patents granted varies greatly across nations. When viewing the origin of each patent’s applicant, we see a handful of countries dominating certain industries.

In this graphic, Jacqueline Ann DeStefano-Tangorra uses 2021 WIPO data to showcase which countries were granted the most new patents, along with their sector categorizations.

Countries with the Most New Patents

In 2021, out of 1,608,375 patents across multiple fields, 87% were granted to innovators from just six countries.

Applicants by Country	Granted Patents (2021)	% of Total
China	607,758	37.8%
United States	286,205	17.8%
Japan	256,890	16.0%
South Korea	156,972	9.8%
Germany	69,672	4.3%
United Kingdom	20,009	1.2%
Unknown	24,677	1.5%
Other Countries	186,192	11.6%
World Total	1,608,375	100.0%

After rapidly increasing its patent output in recent years, China topped the chart in 29 out of 36 total fields including computer technology, electrical machinery, and digital communication. The Chinese government’s focus on innovation led to the nation’s applicants receiving 38% of the 1.6 million patents granted in 2021.

The United States—home to the world’s largest tech companies—came in second with 286,205 granted patents by origin. The U.S. also topped four fields of its own: medical technology, engines and turbines, basic communication processes, and unknown (for inventions that can’t be assigned to a specific field).

Not far behind is Japan with 256,890 granted patents. It dominated the other nations in the fields of semiconductors, optics, and furniture and games, cementing its well-earned reputation of technological innovation.

“Unknown” origin applicants, for which the nationality or country of residence couldn’t be determined for the inventor(s), accounted for 24,677 of granted patents.

The Origin of New Patents by Field

When assessing which technological fields inventors are pursuing in 2021, it’s not unexpected that digital and electrical technologies are in the lead:

Rank	Main Field of Technology	% of Granted Patents
1	Computer technology	10.3%
2	Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy	6.6%
3	Digital communication	6.5%
4	Measurement	5.9%
5	Medical technology	4.8%
6	Transport	4.5%
7	Civil engineering	3.7%
8	Other special machines	3.6%
9	Audio visual technology	3.3%
10	Semiconductors	3.3%

There are also many patents granted mainly in infrastructure-related fields, which have become all the more important following the COVID-19 pandemic and an increasing focus on trade.

These include medical technology, transport, civil engineering, and semiconductors.

A Tech-Savvy Future

The number of patents granted in 2021 is a testament to the growing importance of innovation around the world.

While a select few nations have dominated the patent landscape so far, there are many others making significant contributions to innovation and intellectual property.

As technology continues to advance and the global economy becomes more interconnected, the importance of intellectual property rights will only continue to grow.

Taps Coogan: It’s worth noting that not all patents are the necessarily ‘real.’ China is well known to operate ‘paper mills‘ that turn out huge numbers of fake ‘peer reviewed’ scientific papers to create the impression of scientific prowess and likely does the same thing with patents.