China’s Huawei and OPPO Rank Top 5 Among Corporate Patent Filers in 2019

China surpassed the United States and became the world’s top filer for international patents in 2019, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) reported this week. Chinese brands Huawei and OPPO were among the top 5 corporate filers.

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With 58,990 applications filed through WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) System, China overtook the top position held by the US for more than 40 years. The US, Japan, Germany and South Korea filled the remaining 4 spots.

Telecom giant Huawei with 4,411 PCT applications snatched the number one position on the corporate side, followed by Japan’s Mitsubishi, South Korea’s Samsung, America’s Qualcomm, and China’s OPPO. Chinese companies BOE and Ping’an also made it in the top ten.

According to OPPO, it had more than 43,000 global patent applications and 16,000 global patent licenses by March this year. Among them, 3,000 were 5G patent applications, and 1,900 were in the field of AI. The smartphone maker has also applied for more than 2,700 patents related to fast charging and has received over 1100 licenses.

“We see the strategy of shifting the focus of patent layout from domestic to overseas has achieved initial results in the past several years,” said Feng Ying, senior director of intellectual property at OPPO. “We have formed the layout pattern of 5G standard patent, charging technology, imaging, AI, IoT and other important fields, and we will continue to make breakthroughs in chip, display technology, antenna and other key fields.”