The World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPI) 2025 report provides a comprehensive annual overview of global intellectual property (IP) filing activity, covering patents, trademarks, industrial designs, and other IP rights. Drawing on data from around 150 national and regional IP offices, the report offers a detailed snapshot of worldwide innovation trends.
According to the latest findings, global patenting activity grew by 4.9% in 2024, marking the fifth consecutive year of growth, while design filings rose by 2.2%. Meanwhile, worldwide trademark applications showed signs of stabilisation, recovering from a two-year slowdown to end the year essentially flat.
The WIPI report recorded a historic 3.7 million patent applications filed worldwide in 2024, representing a 4.9% increase compared to 2023. The surge was largely driven by strong filing growth from China, India, the Republic of Korea, and Japan, which together accounted for a major share of global activity.
Among the top 20 origins, India (+19.1%), Finland (+15.4%), and Türkiye (+14.6%) were the only three to achieve double-digit growth in 2024. For India, this marked the sixth consecutive year of double-digit expansion, fuelled primarily by a sharp rise in resident filings, underscoring the country’s growing innovation capacity.
Trademark filing activity showed modest recovery, with China maintaining its lead in global filings. Applicants from China accounted for a combined domestic and international application class count of approximately 7.3 million, followed by the United States (836,457), the Russian Federation (559,436), India (532,900), and Brazil (436,291).
Design filing activity increased for 11 of the top 20 countries in 2024. The strongest growth rates were recorded by India (+44.9%), Morocco (+20.2%), and Indonesia (+18.9%), reflecting rising design innovation and creativity across emerging economies.
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Details
- Publication date
- 18 November 2025
- Author
- European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency