Global IP Filings Continue to Grow: Trademarks

A record 4.2 million trademark applications were filed worldwide in 2011. Around 6.2 million classes were specified in these applications. Of the 6.2 million application class counts, residents accounted for 4.5 million and non-residents for 1.7 million.5

Applications grew by 13.3% in 2011, while application class counts saw a 9.6% increase. Rapid growth in filings in China has been the main contributor to growth in recent years. In 2011, China accounted for 61.8% of growth worldwide.

The majority of the top 20 offices saw growth in filings in 2011 (based on class count data), with China (31.2%), Brazil (21.6%), the United Kingdom (16.4%) and China Hong Kong, SAR (16.1%) recording the fastest growth. The IP office of India has also seen considerable increases over the past few years. In fact, India surpassed Japan in 2010 and the Republic of Korea in 2011.
German applicants filed more than 2.1 million equivalent applications worldwide in 2011.6

Residents of China (1.4 million), the US (1.3 million) and France (1.0 million) were the only three other origins to have filed more than a million applications each. The bulk of Chinese filings were filed domestically. In contrast, the majority of the applications originating in Germany, France and the US were filed abroad. - WIPO