The Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO) issued in January 2014 its latest statistics pointing out that the applications of both domestic and inbound invention patents as filed have declined in 2013, under the influence of low economic growth. Specifically, the amount of domestic invention patent applications was reduced by 5.84% compared with that in the year before, which sets up the largest reduction over the last ten years. The total amount of patent applications as filed in 2013 is 83,211, which was dropped by 2.2% than the previous year, mainly determined by the reduction in the numbers of invention and utility model patent applications; whereas the number of design patent applications kept growing by 8.73%.
For invention patent applications in the last year, 21,730 applications were filed by domestic applicants, which dropped by 5.84%, and 27,488 applications were filed by foreign applicants,which also dropped by 2.22%. Among the foreign applicants, Japan, the United States, South Korea, China and Germany occupied top 5 places on the list. However, the inbound applications of these countries except South Korea all decreased in 2013, wherein Germany -10.5% and China -8.53% were the most drastic.
According to the statistics given by TIPO, the domestic invention applications rose over 10,000 cases for the first time in 2003, and over 20,000 cases in 2005, and then went up and down subsequently. Though it had dropped in both 2009 and 2012, the 5.84% decline in 2013 is the most dramatic in the last ten years.
As for design patents, due to the allowance for applications of computer Icons and Partial Designs from 2013, the number of design patent applications greatly increased. The design applications filed by applicants from Japan was 1428 cases, an increase of 16.2%; those filed by applicants from the United States showed an increase of 46.4% from 543 applications to 795 applications; and those filed by applicants from South Korea increased by 182% from 114 applications to 321 applications. It clearly demonstrates the positive deployments of design patents for the companies in the United States, Japan and South Korea.