Preliminary Statistical Data on Patent Applications, etc. (data for August 2023)

On November 2, 2023, the JPO released its data on patent applications, etc. for Augst 2023.  According to the data, it appears that the number of patent applications from January to August in 2023 is at mostly the same level as in 2020–2022 (see Comparison of the Monthly Number Over the Past Years, on page 1 of the following document: https://www.jpo.go.jp/e/resources/statistics/syutugan_toukei_sokuho/document/index/202308_graphs.pdf).

Looking at past trends in the number of annual patent applications, as shown below, the number of patent applications showed a decreasing trend from 2014 to 2020, but has been flat since 2021 (see Number of Patent Applications, on page 1 of the following document: https://www.jpo.go.jp/e/resources/report/statusreport/2023/document/index/0101.pdf).

Number of Annual Patent Applications from 2013–2022

2013: 328,436

2014: 325,989 (-2,447)

2015: 318,721 (-7,268)

2016: 318,381 (-340)

2017: 318,481 (+100)

2018: 313,567 (-4,914)

2019: 307,969 (-5,598)

2020: 288,472 (-19,497)

2021: 289,200 (+728)

2022: 289,530 (+330)

Recently, the IMF announced that Japan’s GDP will be overtaken by Germany’s GDP in 2023 as it slips from No. 3 to No. 4 in the world on a U.S. dollar basis (https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2023/10/24/economy/japan-gdp-biggest-economies-imf/).  Since Japan’s GDP ranking is expected to fall further in the near future, attention will be focused on whether Japan can maintain the number of patent applications.

Preliminary Statistical Data (data for August 2023): https://www.jpo.go.jp/e/resources/statistics/syutugan_toukei_sokuho/index.html

JPO Status Report 2023: https://www.jpo.go.jp/e/resources/report/statusreport/2023/index.html