In the world of intellectual property, the landscape for patent applications has undergone significant changes over the past few decades. A recent analysis of global data on domestic and foreign patent applications revealed a notable shift toward cross-border patenting, with foreign patent applications growing at a faster pace than domestic ones.
Both figures below illustrate this trend, showing the evolution of domestic and foreign patent applications over time, first without and then with China included in the analysis. When China is excluded, the data indicate that between 1995 and 2018, foreign patent applications grew by an impressive 136%, far outpacing the 27% growth in domestic applications. The first figure shows three distinct periods in the evolution of cross-border patenting.