According to the statistics of World Intellectual Property Organization, the number of PCT applications in the year 2008 was significant. China, having filed 6,089 applications, surpassed Britain and became world's 6th country in PCT applications.
The United States, Japan, Germany, Republic of Korea and France were he first five countries in the ranking list in terms of PCT applications. China was among the top 10 countries in filing PCT applications.
Starting from May 1, 2007, the State Intellectual Property Office officially accepted PCT-SAFE applications. In 2008, the number of applications through PCT-SAFE was 4,096. The PCT-SAFE offers standardized templates for formulating application documents and reduced the fee and facilitated the filing of applications.
Enterprises are still the main applicants in China; among them, HUWEI Technologies Co., Ltd. and ZTE Corporation respectively took the first and 38 positions of all the applicants in the world, an indication that China play a more and more important role in international patent system.
