The World Intellectual Property Organization recently said that China's international patent applications under the framework of the Patent Cooperation Treaty of the organization surged by 44.7% in 2016. If this figure continues to grow at double-digit rates, China, currently ranked third in the world, will overtake the United States and Japan within two years and rise to the top of the world.

The organization's statistics show that in 2016, the global patent applications under the framework of the Patent Cooperation Treaty of the organization were more than 233,000, an increase of 7.3% compared with the previous year. Among them, the United States ranked first for the 39th consecutive year, accounting for about 24.3% of the total applications under the framework of the Patent Cooperation Treaty of the organization. Japan and China followed closely, accounting for 19.4% and 18.5% respectively.

From January to June 2016, the global PCT patent applications were 110,008, an increase of 4.9% year-on-year. Among them: the United States had 27,832 applications, a decrease of 0.4% year-on-year; Japan had 23,084 applications, an increase of 1.2% year-on-year; China had 17,473 applications, an increase of 36.8% year-on-year; Germany had 8,818 applications, a decrease of 1.1% year-on-year; South Korea had 7,069 applications, an increase of 5.1% year-on-year.

From January to June 2016, China's cumulative PCT patent applications reached 17,473, an increase of 36.8% year-on-year, accounting for 15.88% of the global applications, an increase of 3.71 percentage points compared with the same period of the previous year. Among them, the application volume in June accounted for 17.74% of the global applications, an increase of 4.97 percentage points compared with June last year.

ZTE Corporation of China had as many as 4,123 international patent applications, exceeding Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.'s 3,692 applications and becoming the largest applicant for international patents in 2016. Qualcomm Incorporated of the United States, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation of Japan and LG Electronics Inc. of South Korea ranked third to fifth with 2,466, 2,053 and 1,888 applications respectively.

In this interconnected knowledge-based global economy, creators and innovators are increasingly relying on intellectual property rights to promote and protect their global competitive advantages. Behind a large part of the growth in international patent and trademark applications are Chinese applicants. At a time when the country is promoting its process from "Made in China" to "Created in China", they have taken a big step in enterprise internationalization.

Francis Gurry, director-general of the World Intellectual Property Organization, fully affirmed China's achievements in intellectual property rights, believing that "China's performance is extraordinary." At the same time, he fully affirmed China's performance in international trademark registration and other aspects. The organization's statistics show that in 2016, China's trademark international registration applications ranked fourth in the world. Moreover, among the top 15 sources of international trademark registrations, China ranked first with a growth rate of 68.6% in 2016.