World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) – World Intellectual Property Indicators (WIPO)

The World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) 2020 annual report, entitled “World Intellectual Property Indicators 2020“, shows an increase of 5.9% in trademark applications and 1.3% in design applications for 2019.

On the other hand, and according to the information provided by the WIPO, patent applications show a significant decline of 3% which is justified by “the decline in the number of applications filed by Chinese residents”. Without taking China into consideration, “patent filings increased by 2.3% worldwide” in 2019.

However, China still leads the ranking of IP applications across all rights (patents, trademarks, and designs/designs) compared to 2018.
As for Switzerland, it retains its rank of 8th for patents, 14th for trademarks and gains one rank over 2018 (from 11th to 10th) for designs.

The EU countries bordering Switzerland rank respectively in the following places: patents (Germany 5th France 6th Italy 11th and Austria 16th), trademarks (Germany 4th France 6th Italy 13th and Austria 24th); designs (Germany 2nd France 6th Italy 5th and Austria 25th).

Link to the full 2020 annual report:
https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_941_2020.pdf