Patent Activity in the Pacific Rim Big Four National Offices:* Harold C.

Wegner

This brief paper reports on statistics for patent filings and backlogs amongst the four national Offices of the IP 5 which demonstrate a growing American backlog of pending applications versus a decreasing relative number of patent filings now down to 12 % of the total for the Big 4 Pacific Rim Offices, ahead of only Korea, while behind both China and Japan. Patent bookkeeping inherited from previous Administrations has had as an apparent goal a showing that America is Number One in patent filings around the world. This has been accomplished by (a) counting only regular patent applications; and (b) including among regular applications the refiling of applications as RCEs or continuing applications. Even with this artificial bookkeeping, the United States for 2011 shows 504,000 applications while China surpassed the United States with 530,000 filings. But, if one takes into account that 46 % of all applications filed in the United States are refilings (as RCEs or continuing applications), the U.S. total dips to 270,000; adding the 21,000 design applications filed in the United States gives a grand total of 290,000 applications whereas the grand total for China is 1,500,000: China accounts for 63 % of all new patent filings amongst the Big 4 while the United States comes in at Number (3) with 12 %, behind No. (2) Japan with 15 %:
*

This version February 19, 2013.

Wegner, Patent Activity in the Pacific Rim Big Four National Offices

Table I

Top Four Patent Application Filing Countries: All New (First) Filings (2011)*
Country 1. 2. 3. 4. China Japan USA Korea [excluding RCEs and Continuing Filings] New1 Patent Application Filings Percentage Regular Utility Model Design Total of Top 4 530,000 590,000 380,000 1,500,000 63 % 340,000 8,000 26,000 370,000 15 % 2 270,000 21,000 290,000 12 % -180,000 12,000 44,000 240,000 10 %

*Statistics 1 New

are taken from the 2012 World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPO 2012). refers to first application filings other than a provisional or Paris Convention priority application. 2 WIPO reports 503,582 U.S. filings which includes RCEs and continuing applications under 35 USC 120. Only approximately 54 % of the total represents new filings. [503,582 x 0.54 = 270,000].

Redrafting the Table to count RCEs and other refilings as new applications, the results are only slightly altered:
Table IA

Top Four Patent Application Filing Countries: All Patent Filings (2011)*
Country 1. 2. 3. 4. China USA Japan Korea [including RCEs and Continuing Filings] New1 Patent Application Filings Percentage Regular Utility Model Design Total of Top 4 530,000 590,000 380,000 1,500,000 57 % 504,000 21,000 525,000 20 % -340,000 8,000 26,000 370,000 14 % 180,000 12,000 44,000 240,000 9%

*Statistics

1 Excludes

are taken from the 2012 World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPO 2012). a provisional or Paris Convention priority application.

The problem with RCEs is particularly striking when one considers the fact that both Japan and the United States have approximately the same number of first

Wegner, Patent Activity in the Pacific Rim Big Four National Offices filings but Japan has solid control over its backlog that approximates the number of new filings each year.

While Japan and the United States are approximately equal in terms of overall new filings, Japan has a far more manageable backlog of pending applications under examination:

Table II*

Top Four New** Patent Application Filing Countries (2011)

Total First Filings (New Cases) (in red) Backlog of pending cases b under examination (in black)
China*** Japan backlog USA backlog Korea backlog
*

1,500,000 370,000 350,000 290,000 1,200,000 240,000 280,000

Data for new applications is taken from Table I which in based on calculations keyed to the 2012 World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPO 2012). ***Data for backlog is taken from the 2012 World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPO 2012), Figure A.11.3, Pending Applications undergoing examination, 2011 (page 84). Numbers are rounded to two significant figures. ** For a definition of new, see Table I, note 1; for the United States filing totals, see note 2. *** China does not report backlog information.