UN: "Global Generative AI Patent Applications Increased 8-Fold in 6 Years"... China Leads

Rapid Increase in Generative AI Patent Applications
Most Patent Applications Filed in China

Over the past six years, the number of generative artificial intelligence (AI) patent applications worldwide has surged eightfold, with China leading the way.

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According to AFP, the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held a press conference in Geneva on the 3rd (local time) to release a new report on generative AI patent applications containing this information.

The report states that over the past decade up to last year, a total of 54,000 generative AI patent applications were filed worldwide. Of these, 25% were filed last year alone.

Generative AI patents account for only 6% of global AI patents, but the number of applications is rapidly increasing. WIPO noted that since the introduction of deep neural network architecture, synonymous with AI, in 2017, generative AI patents have increased eightfold, describing this as a "booming" area.

So far, the largest number of generative AI patent applications have been filed in China. From 2014 to last year, more than 38,000 applications were filed in China. This is more than six times the 6,276 applications filed in the United States, which ranked second during the same period. Following were South Korea with 4,155, Japan with 3,409, and India with 1,350 applications.

Most of the top applicants are Chinese (companies and institutions), with Tencent, China's largest information technology (IT) company, ranking first. Ping An Insurance, Baidu, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences ranked second to fourth, respectively, all from China. IBM from the United States ranked fifth. Following were Alibaba from China, Samsung Electronics from South Korea, Alphabet from the United States, ByteDance from China, and Microsoft from the United States.