Data issued by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on February 8 indicated that in 2009, China totally filed 7946 international patent applications, up 29.7% compared with 2008, ranking the fifth in the world.

A statement by the WIPO told that the organization totally received 155,900 international patent applications last year, slightly down 4.5% compared with the previous year. Impacted by the economic crisis and other elements, the number of the international patent applications filed by the US, Germany and the UK apparently declined. However, that of China, Japan and South Korea continuously maintained the trend of increase.

The number of the international patent applications of the US last year ranked the first to 45790 items, down 11.4% compared with the previous year, though. The top ten countries in the ranking are Japan, Germany, South Korea, China, France, the UK, Netherland, Switzerland and Sweden.