Patent Applications Worldwide by Year, 2000-2021

About This Dataset

Total patent applications filed worldwide by residents at their own national patent offices, each year from 2000 to 2021. The series measures global domestic inventive activity and shows a long climb that stalled at the end of the period rather than continuing upward.

✨ AI Insight

Worldwide resident patent filings rose from 874,800 in 2000 to 2,385,200 in 2021, an increase of 173%. Growth was almost uninterrupted, with only three down years across the whole series: 2002, 2009 and 2019. The last of these was by far the largest, a fall of 147,100 filings, and it matters because the series high is 2018 at 2,386,300. Three years later, in 2021, the total was still 1,100 filings short of that peak, so the period ends flat rather than at a record. The strongest single year was 2016, which added 242,600 filings.

Source: World Bank / World Intellectual Property Organization

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

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2018 leads with 2,386,300 in 2000-2021.

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Average value in 2000-2021: 1,522,273 · median: 1,301,050.

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Gap in 2000-2021: 2018 is 2.7× larger than 2000.