The World Intellectual Property Organization said in Geneva on February 9 that the number of China's international patent applications increased significantly last year, and now it has become the fourth largest international patent applicant country in the world.

According to data released by the World Intellectual Property Organization on the same day, the number of international patent applications filed by China under the framework of the Patent Cooperation Treaty soared from 7,900 in 2009 to 12,339 last year, an increase of 56.2%.

 Two Chinese companies entered the top 10 of the global international patent application list this time. Among them, ZTE ranked second with 1,863 international patent applications, up from 20 in 2009. Another Chinese company, Huawei, ranked fourth with 1,528 patent applications.

However, among the top 50 universities in the number of international patent applications, no Chinese universities were shortlisted. A total of 30 American universities entered the top 50, and the annual number of international patent applications ranged from 306 to 30.

The World Intellectual Property Organization pointed out that international patent applications in Northeast Asia have shown a strong growth trend and are becoming the driving force for global growth in the field. Excluding China, international patent applications from Japan and South Korea increased by 7.9% and 20.5% respectively last year.

Affected by factors such as the financial crisis and the decline in R&D investment, European and American countries have performed poorly in patent applications. The number of international patent applications in the United States and the United Kingdom even declined for three consecutive years.

According to the data released by the World Intellectual Property Organization, the top four countries in the number of international patent applications in 2010 were the United States (44,855), Japan (32,156), Germany (17,171) and China.