Strong Growth in Patent Applications Worldwide

Applications for patents and other forms of IP rebounded strongly in 2010, so says a new report from WIPO.
Inventors and companies filed 1.98 million patent applications worldwide in 2010, a new record. China and the U.S. accounted for about 80 percent of the growth. Canada experienced a slight decline of 5.1 percent; however, residents of Canada filed more than 80 percent of their patent applications in other countries.

Statistical Country Profiles from WIPO

Statistical country profiles for more than one hundred countries are now available on the WIPO website. Each profile provides information on patents, utility models, trademarks and industrial designs from 1995 to the present. Patent applications by the top fields of technology are given.This is a very useful resource for librarians, researchers, and students looking for national IP statistics.

Patentscope 1.0 Retires on Oct. 13

WIPO will phase out its PatentScope "Classic" search system on Oct. 13, 2011. All searches will be directed to the new PatentScope, which was introduced in 2009. WIPO launched the original PatentScope in 2003.

PatentScope Adds EPO Collection

The EPO patent document backfile, which includes bibliographic data from 1978 through mid-2010 and full-text data from 1996 through mid-2010, is now available in PatentScope. With this addition, the WIPO's patent search system has 7.7 million patent documents from 21 regional and national patent offices.

Earlier this year PatentScope added the national patent collections of Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Peru and Uruguay. Search interfaces in Korea, Russian and Spanish have also been deployed.

PatentScope Adds Patents of Brazil

PatentScope now includes the national patent collection of Brazil. Data coverage begins in 1972 for bibliographic data and 1989 for abstracts. The total number of records is about 147,000.

New Database of IP Case Studies

The WIPO has launched a new database that contains profiles of intellectual property case studies from around the world. The collection of 100+ cases cover patents, trade marks and copyright and could be an excellent source of material for presentations and programs.

10th World IP Day and New Logo for WIPO

Today is the 10th anniversary of World Intellectual Property Day and the 40th anniversary of the WIPO.

In celebration, WIPO has adopted a new logo. It's the first time the logo has been changed since the organization was established in 1970.

Although some people will probably complain that the new logo is too "corporate", I think it's a definite improvement over the old one, which was cluttered... And what was the deal with the big star anyway? It always reminded me of a Soviet military medal.

Trademarks Go Green

World Intellectual Property Day is April 26, just over a month away. This year's theme is green innovation. The environment and climate change have become major political and public opinion issues in the over last few years. Companies and advertisers have certainly noticed this trend and are keen to link their products and services with environmentally friendly values. More and more products are being branded as "green". You can see this trend in trademark filings. As the chart below shows, the number of US and Canadian trademark applications filed for marks containing the word GREEN increased dramatically in the last few years. In 2007 alone, the number of filings increased in the US 131 percent and in Canada 88 percent.
















Data source: USPTO and CIPO trademark databases, March 20, 2009.

Patent Filings Slow Amid Economic Slowdown

The worldwide economic crisis appears to be having an impact on international patent filings. This week the WIPO announced that the number of international patent application filings in 2008 increased by 2.4 percent, a big drop from the 9.3 percent average pver the past several years. However, the number of applications filed was 164,000, an all-time high. The countries with the largest increases were Korea (12%) , China (11.9%) and Sweden (12.5%). The U.S. experienced a 1 percent drop. Australia, Italy, Netherlands, UK also experienced declines. Canada had a very respectable 4.2% increase.

Promoting IP Awareness - Database of Materials

The WIPO has a new database called IP Outreach in Practice which contains "basic information and links to practical examples of interesting IP outreach initiatives."

It's quite an interesting collection and a great place to look for inspiration and ideas. You can search by category (IP creation, IP use and awareness, IP crime), format (tv program, curriculum material, newsletter, etc.). There's an advanced search for more complicated queries.

WIPO wants to continue building the collection. You can send examples of outreach materials or initiatives to outreach@wipo.int.

PatentScope Suppresses Inventor Address Data

WIPO has announced that due to privacy concerns it will remove address data for inventors and individual applicants from its PatentScope database. The data will not be indexed or displayed in Internet search engines. This will not affect PatentScope searches or RSS search alerts. I ran several test searches based on city names and postal codes and retrieved the expected documents, although address data did not appear in individual records. However, address data will still appear on the frontpage of PCT documents in PDF format.

It is unclear if this policy will apply to WIPO data obtained by third-party database producers such as FreePatentsOnline and Patent Lens. As of December 30, inventor address data from PCT documents was still indexed and displayed in Patent Lens.

2008 World Patent Report

The WIPO recently released its 2008 World Patent Report, which contains all kinds of interesting statistics on patent activity worldwide. In 2006, a stunning 1.76 million new applications were filed worldwide, driven largely by filings in China, Korea and the U.S.

One of the most interesting sections covers patent filings per GDP, population and R&D. Both Japan (#1) and Korea (#2) had more than 2000 new resident applications per million population. (Japan 127 million pop. = / Korea pop. = 49 million) The U.S. (#3) managed just shy of 800 resident filings per million (with a pop. of 300 million). In R&D, Korea was the leader again, with slightly more than 5 applications per million $ of R&D funding. Russia, Japan, China and (surprisingly) New Zealand rounded out the top five. The US ranked #7 and Canada #29. Clearly, Asia is keen on generating IP.

All this demand is creating huge problems for patent offices. In 2006, the USPTO had more that one million pending applications, a 30% increase over 2004. Japan has about 800K pending applications, up from 600K in 2004. The EPO, on the other hand, has about 250,000 pending applications, which is about the same as 2004 and 2005. It takes about 40 months on average for the EPO to process an application but only 30 months at the JPO and USPTO. The Korean IP Office processes applications in about 20 months.

2008 World Patent Report

The World Intellectual Property Organization has released its 2008 World Patent Report. The 72-page report provides a statistical overview of worldwide patent activity, including the number of patent filings, granted patents, patent families, patents in force, patents by field of technology and the cost of patenting.

WHAM-O's 60th Anniversary Kid Inventor Contest

The new issue of WIPO Magazine has several interesting articles, including one on the 60th anniversary of the WHAM-O toy company. Wham-O is best known for introducing the hula hoop to America in 1958, followed by Frisbee flying discs, Slip 'n' Slide and Superball. In celebration of its 60th birthday, WHAM-O is sponsoring a kid inventor contest. The winning inventor will receive $2000 and WHAM-O may choose to produce their toy. The deadline is March 31, 2008.

Some of WHAM-O's recent patents include a shark-shaped water slide (D562,929); children's waterboard with squirting device (7,264,522) ; and a children's playground slide (D540,413).

Paris Convention and Public Access to Patents

This year is the 125th anniversary of signing of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, one of the cornerstones of the modern international industrial property system. The treaty was signed in Paris by representatives of 11 countries on March 20, 1883. Today, there are 172 member countries.

The convention introduced many important principals to international intellectual property law. First and foremost, it required members to apply the same level of protection to nationals of other member countries as their own citizens. It also established the right of priority, a grace period for the payment of maintenance fees, and the right of the inventor to be mentioned in a patent. Less well know is its impact on the dissemination of patent information.

Article 12, which has the rather ambiguous title "Special National Industrial Property Services" requires member states to make intellectual property information available to the public. Specifically, the text of the Article states:

(1) Each country of the Union undertakes to establish a special industrial property service and a central office for the communication to the public of patents, utility models, industrial designs, and trademarks.

(2) This service shall publish an official periodical journal. It shall publish regularly:
(a) the names of the proprietors of patents granted, with a brief designation of the inventions patented;
(b) the reproductions of registered trademarks.

It's easy today to take for granted free and reliable access to patent information. Would it have been so if the framers of the Paris Convention had not valued the importance of information dissemination? Would the public enjoy the level of access to patent, trademark and design information it has today? Probably not.

PCT Publication Date Changes - May 17, Sept. 7, Dec. 21

According to the WIPO, official holidays in Switzerland this year will delay the date of publication for PCT applications as follows:

• Ascension: Thursday May 17, 2007 - Publication date: Friday, May 18, 2007
• Jeune Genevois: Thursday, September 6, 2007 - Publication date: Friday, September 7, 2007
• Eid al-Adha: Thursday, December 20, 2007 - Publication date: Friday, December 21, 2007