Malaysia filed 35 trademark applications per billion GDP

The estimated total of 3.66 million trademark applications worldwide in 2010 consisted of 2.78 million resident and 0.88 million non-resident applications. The IP office of China accounted for three-fifths of the 11.8% growth in applications worldwide.

Most of the large offices returned to positive growth in applications in 2010, having seen declines the previous year. The IP office of China received around a quarter of a million additional applications in 2010 compared to 2009 – more than the number of total annual applications received by France, Germany, and the UK together. A number of other large offices saw double-digit growth in 2010, notably China Hong Kong (SAR) (18.3%), Mexico (16%), France (13.1%), OHIM (12.2%), Brazil (11.5%) and the Russian Federation (11.4%).

The picture is more mixed for offices in low- and middle -income economies. A number of Eastern European countries such as Estonia (-15.1%), Georgia (-13%) and Lithuania (-14.8%) saw considerable declines in applications, whereas several non-European countries, such as Argentina (17.1%), Madagascar (16%), Panama (24%) and South Africa (13.9%), saw rapid filing growth.

Residents of Germany filed around 1.9 million “equivalent applications” in 2010. Residents of China and the US also filed more than one million applications each. The reason for the high number of applications for German and US residents is their extensive use of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) to seek protection in the EU. Each application at OHIM covers all EU member states, elevating the number of equivalent applications.

The Report shows that middle-income countries filed a higher number of trademark applications per GDP as compared to high-income countries. Chile filed 218 trademark applications per billion GDP in 2010. Bulgaria (166), Ecuador (157) and Viet Nam (128) also show high ratios of trademark filings per GDP, exceeding those for Germany (72), Japan (39) and the US (22). Malaysia filed 35 trademark applications per billion GDP in 2010. - WIPO