A successful year for trade marks and designs worldwide
Looking back at 2017, statistics give us a better understanding of the big picture and help us interpreting the market to guess in which direction the economy is going to go.
Since 2010, trade mark and design applications have seen an exceptional growth. Trade mark filings, annually, exceeded 10% globally and about 7 million trade mark applications were filed worldwide in 2016, which indicates a 16.4% increase compared to the previous year. In terms of design applications, in 2016 we have seen a 10% increase for the second consecutive year with nearly a million applications filed worldwide.
Once again, statistics confirm that growth is driven by China, where more than 50% of the global design applications were filed in 2016 and trade mark applications increased by 30% in the same year. The U.S. performed better than the EU in terms of trade mark filings. However, the EU follows China in the number of design applications filed yearly.
Interestingly, agriculture, research and technology and business services were the top three sectors in which trade marks were filed in 2016. Whereas, furniture was the most registered product worldwide. Additionally, international applications did quite well, considering that Madrid international applications increased by more than 9% and Hague filings grew by 36% in 2016.
Trade mark and design statistics certainly prove that protecting intellectual property has become a priority across industries and an essential asset to fairly compete within the market.
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