Patexia Insight 205: Top Foreign Countries Driving U.S. Trademark Filings
Tomorrow marks the highly anticipated release of our fourth annual Trademark Intelligence Report, offering a comprehensive analysis of the trademark landscape in the United States. Over the past five years, from January 1, 2019, to December 31, 2023, the trademark scene has been bustling with activity, with 2,964,312 applications filed. The report explores the outcomes of the 2,630,366 applications examined by the USPTO during this period, shedding light on the registration of 1,613,508 trademarks and the abandonment of 1,016,858, resulting in a registration rate of 61.34%. Going beyond the registration rates, renewals, and cancellations, we focus on both domestic and foreign activity, analyzing the top growing and declining countries. Furthermore, the report analyzes all stakeholders of trademark prosecution, evaluating 213,639 companies, 24,921 law firms, and 32,484 attorneys, ranking the top 2,000 based on their activity and performance. Today's insight offers a sneak peek into the filing trends of the past five years and unveils the top five foreign countries making their mark in the U.S. trademark landscape.
As shown above, trademark application filing activity has fluctuated significantly over the past five years. There was a notable surge of 30.54% from 2019 to 2020, reaching a record high of 692,461 applications. This number remained relatively stable in 2021, experiencing only a slight decrease of 1.56%. The trend then took a significant downturn in 2022, with filings dropping by 19.76%. In 2023, there was a smaller decline with 543,166 filings. Exploring filing trends and the underlying reasons driving them is essential as it provides insights not only into the economic and market landscape but also directly influences trademark processing times by the USPTO. As covered in Patexia 176, the fluctuations in filings were driven in part by trademark applications from Chinese entities, which have consistently increased yearly over the past decade. In 2020, these applications surged by 144%, and declined again in 2022, matching the fluctuations observed in overall filings.
Data indicates that domestic activity has been significant, with U.S. companies filing 1,903,308 applications over the five-year period, representing 64.21% of the total 2,964,312 applications filed. This highlights a significant aspect of trademark application activity: approximately one in three applications originates from foreign countries. Understanding this activity is crucial as it directly influences the dynamics and trends of overall filings. The following chart illustrates the top five foreign countries based on trademark applications filed during the past five years.
China has consistently ranked among the most active countries in trademark filings over the past decade. Approximately one in five trademark applications are filed from Chinese entities. The increase in trademark filings from China can be attributed to the expanding global reach of Chinese companies and their increasing awareness of the importance of trademark protection in foreign markets, but also to non-market factors. The USPTO has highlighted subsidies, government mandates, and bad-faith trademark applications as significant influences. Canada stands in the second position with 49,478 trademark applications filed by its entities. This indicates a strong economic relationship between the two nations, as Canada ranks as one of the leading suppliers of goods to the United States. In 2022, goods imports from Canada totaled $436.6 billion, positioning it as the third-largest supplier after China, whose imports amounted to $536.3 billion, and Mexico with $454.8 billion. It's worth noting that Mexico does not rank among the top trademark application filers. This requires further analysis to determine whether this discrepancy is due to the types of goods traded, a potential lack of awareness regarding trademarks and intellectual property, or other factors. The United Kingdom ranks third with 36,894 applications, followed by Korea and Germany with 26,812 and 25,256 applications, respectively. These countries also hold prominent positions as trade partners of the USA.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's release, where we will be also updating the data on our website regarding rankings and scores of activity and performance. We've built profile pages for each stakeholder, including companies, law firms, and attorneys. These profiles offer detailed statistics regarding trademark filings, application statuses, registered trademarks, top entities, firms, and attorneys per entity. Entities ranking in the top 250 are awarded badges for recognition. Some of this data is available to all registered users, while access to additional information requires a subscription to Concierge.