Patent Applications by Country, Historical Data 2000-2021

About This Dataset

Patent applications filed by residents of each country at its national patent office, at five benchmark years between 2000 and 2021. Resident filings are used because they measure domestic inventive activity rather than foreign companies protecting products in a market. Twelve major filing nations are shown.

✨ AI Insight

The ranking inverted completely. In 2000 Japan led with 387,364 resident filings, more than fifteen times China's 25,346. By 2021 China filed 1,426,644, roughly five and a half times the United States total of 262,244, while Japan had fallen 43% to 222,452. Five of these twelve countries filed fewer patents in 2021 than in 2000: the United Kingdom dropped furthest at 47%, followed by Japan, Germany at 23%, Russia and France. Growth elsewhere was steep but from small bases, with Turkey up from 277 filings to 8,234 and India from 2,206 to 26,267. South Korea more than doubled from an already substantial base, 72,831 to 186,245, the fourth-largest total in 2021.

Source: World Bank / World Intellectual Property Organization

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

🏆

China leads with 1,426,644 in 2021.

📈

China grew fastest: +5528.7% from 2000 to 2021 (25,346 → 1,426,644).

📉

United Kingdom declined most: -47.4% from 2000 to 2021 (22,050 → 11,592).

📊

Average value in 2021: 185,486 · median: 22,918.

📅

2021 recorded the highest combined total across all categories.

↔️

Gap in 2021: China is 305.8× larger than Brazil.