GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.'s intellectual property agency says China continued to set the pace worldwide for patent applications last year, filing a record 1 million that nearly all focused on its giant home market.
The World Intellectual Property Organization says China made up over one in three of a total 2.9 million patent applications in 2015, followed by the United States and Japan with about a half-million each. Domestic-only applications made up about two-thirds of the global total; only about 42,000 Chinese applications were for patents outside China.
Releasing an annual report on Wednesday, WIPO officials say the increase shows the strong demand for protection for intellectual property rights.
The agency says the computer technology, electrical machinery and digital communications sectors recorded the highest number of published patent applications.
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