According to the statistics published by the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO), a total of 72,613 patent applications and 95,917 trademark applications were filed in 2021. Under the global COVID-19 epidemic for two consecutive years, Taiwan patent and trademark applications still recorded a slight growth last year. For patent applications filed by domestic applicants, invention applications increased by 3%, while utility model and design applications decreased by 12% and 10% respectively. Invention, utility model and design applications filed by foreign applicants increased by 7%, 13%, and 2% respectively. As for trademark applications, both the number of applications filed by the domestic and foreign applicants increased by 2% and 3%. Notably, the growth rate of invention patent applications reached 5.25%, mainly due to the substantial increase in the number of applications from large enterprises, which highlights the importance of patent layout in the post-epidemic era. The following is the relevant statistics of Taiwan patent and trademark applications filed in 2021.
Table 1: The number of Taiwan patent applications in the past three years
| Year | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Invention | 48,268 | 46,664 | 49,116 |
| Utility Model | 17,580 | 17,555 | 15,796 |
| Design | 8,804 | 8,019 | 7,701 |
| Total | 74,652 | 72,238 | 72,613 |
Table 2: Number of applications from domestic applicants and foreign applicants
| Year | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Applicant | Domestic | Foreign | Domestic | Foreign | Domestic | Foreign |
| Invention | 18,984 | 29,284 | 19,012 | 27,652 | 19,547 | 29,569 |
| Utility Model | 16,412 | 1,168 | 16,445 | 1,110 | 14,543 | 1,253 |
| Design | 4,208 | 4,596 | 3,947 | 4,072 | 3,534 | 4,167 |
| Total | 39,604 | 35,048 | 39,404 | 32,834 | 37,624 | 34,989 |
| Percentage | 53.05% | 46.95% | 54.54% | 45.45% | 52.02% | 48.18% |
Table 3: Main countries (regions) and number of patent applications in Taiwan
| Year | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Types | IN | UM | DE | Total | IN | UM | DE | Total | IN | UM | DE | Total |
| Japan | 13195 | 74 | 1329 | 14598 | 12110 | 66 | 1071 | 13247 | 12221 | 61 | 1042 | 13324 (↑1%) |
| USA | 6341 | 184 | 912 | 7437 | 6265 | 94 | 999 | 7358 | 7011 | 133 | 842 | 7986 (↑9%) |
| China | 2723 | 560 | 415 | 3698 | 2669 | 638 | 454 | 3761 | 3022 | 782 | 449 | 4253 (↑13%) |
| Korea | 1656 | 16 | 142 | 1814 | 1731 | 10 | 141 | 1882 | 2223 | 8 | 157 | 2388 (↑27%) |
| German | - | - | - | - | 931 | 12 | 222 | 1165 | 1047 | 8 | 233 | 1288 (↑11%) |
| Hong Kong | 1018 | 118 | 146 | 1282 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Note: IN, UM and DE refer to invention, utility model and design, respectively. | ||||||||||||
Table 4: Number of applications for trademark registration in Taiwan in the past three years
| Year | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domestic Applicant （percentage） | 61,928 （71.35%） | 72,170 （76.7%） | 73,374 （76.5%） |
| Foreign Applicant（percentage） | 24,866 （28.65%） | 21,919 （23.3%） | 22,543 （23.5%） |
| Total applications | 86,794 | 94,089 | 95,917 |
| Overall classes | 111,681 | 119,660 | 123,217 |
Table 5: Main countries (regions) and number of applications for trademark registration in Taiwan
| Year | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 6,108 | 4,575 | 4,929 (↑8%) |
| USA | 3,621 | 3,814 | 4,032 (↑6%) |
| Japan | 4,748 | 4,013 | 3,437 (↓14%) |
| Korea | 1,668 | 1,541 | 1,571 (↑2%) |
| Hong Kong | 1,617 | 1,577 | 1,548 (↓2%) |
Table 6: Top five categories (Nice International Classification) and number of applications for Taiwan trademark registration in 2021 (annual increase)
| Classes | Domestic Applicants | Classes | Foreign Applicants | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Class 35 （advertisements, business operation, etc.） | 15,034 （↑12.99%） | Class 9 （computer and technology products, etc.） | 4,502 （↑0.99%） | |
| Class 43 （restaurant, lodging, etc.） | 8,104 （↑8.66%） | Class 35 （advertisements, business operation, etc.） | 2,981 （↑5.78%） | |
| Class 30 （coffee, tea, pastries, etc.） | 7,441 （↑0.41%） | Class 5 （pharmaceuticals, etc.） | 2,724 （↓2.05%） | |
| Class 5 （pharmaceuticals, etc.） | 5,734 （↓3.65%） | Class 3 （toiletries, detergents, etc.） | 2,386 （↓5.58%） | |
| Class 41 （education, entertainment, etc.） | 4,910 （↑5.14%） | Class 42 （Scientific and technological services） | 2,174 （↑20.44%） |
Table 7: Top five applicants with the number of categories of Taiwan trademark registration applications in 2021
| Domestic Applicant | Number of Classes | Foreign Applicant | Number of Classes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Uni-President Enterprises | 567 | 1. Bunny Girl (Hong Kong) | 135 |
| 2. Family Mart | 180 | 2. Xiaomi Tech. (China） | 132 |
| 3. King Car | 147 | 3. Shiseido (Japan) | 107 |
| 4. Wowprime Corp. | 138 | 4. Netease Interactive Entertainment (Singapore) | 106 |
| 5. Che Tai International | 124 | 5. Huawei (China) | 93 |
| Note: For top patent applicants, please refer to our newsletter of "2021 Taiwan Top 100 Patent Applicants." | |||
Table 8: Processing period for Taiwan patent and trademark applications in 2021
| Invention Patent | Trademark | |
|---|---|---|
| Average time to issue a first opinion letter by TIPO | 8.7 months | 4.9 months |
| Average time to issue a final decision by TIPO | 14 months | 6.2 months |
