Spreading Innovation: WIPO’s International Patent System Passes 5 Million Mark for Published Applications

Geneva, December 2, 2024
PR/2024/930

WIPO’s international patent system published its 5 millionth patent application, marking a major milestone in decades of operations making it easier and cheaper for inventors to protect and promote their work around the world.

By filing an international patent application through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in one language and a single currency, applicants can simultaneously seek protection for their invention in over 150 countries. This results in significant labor and economic savings, while facilitating the worldwide spread of human ingenuity for a common global benefit.

Begun in 1978, the PCT has published its 5 millionth patent application: A filing for an invention from Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. titled “Image Processing Device and Image Processing Method ” designed to stabilize photographic images and result in clearer mobile phone pictures.

“In nearly five decades of operations, WIPO’s PCT has helped spread across borders the great inventions of our times: from bluetooth to robots to the underlying architecture of the internet and mobile phones as well as CRISPR, life-saving vaccines and today’s electric vehicles,” said WIPO Director General Daren Tang. He added: “The PCT is any innovator’s go-to option to secure patent protection in multiple countries. WIPO is vigorously pursuing its PCT mission of supporting applicants and potential new users the world over in the realization of the most precious of natural resources, human inventiveness.”  

“It’s notable that the PCT’s 5 millionth patent application is from a company based in the Republic of Korea, which has harnessed innovation, technology, and ingenuity to transform its economy in roughly the same time span as the PCT’s operations. Intellectual property-driven innovation is a key driver of human progress, as the Republic of Korea has shown,” said Mr. Tang.

About the PCT

The PCT helps applicants seek patent protection internationally for their inventions as well as governments with patent granting decisions, while providing public access to a wealth of technical information when patent applications are published.

The PCT is used the world over by individual inventors, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), universities, research institutions and major corporations. It keeps the inventor’s options open for pursuing a patent before any of the PCT’s 158 member states through the filing of a single international patent application with multinational legal effect. The PCT improves upon the traditional patent system, giving innovators more time to make decisions and more patentability-related information about their invention. Some 272,600 PCT applications were filed in 2023.

The PCT also benefits the national patent offices of its member states, giving those offices high quality information on the patentability of the invention to help them make their own patent granting decisions. Meantime, the general public benefits from the disclosure of all PCT applications to the world when they are published by WIPO (approximately 5,000 every week on WIPO’s PATENTSCOPE database).