Trends of Design Patent Applications of Japan

According to the 2013 Annual Report by JPO (Japan Patent Office), some of the statistics of Design Patent Applications of recent years are as follows.

Number of Design Patent Applications at JPO

During 2012, JPO received 32,391 Design Patent Applications, 5.1% more than in the previous year.
The number of Design Patent Applications filed at JPO have been running at something over 30,000 annually.
Of these applications, 27,934 (＋4.8% compared to 2011) were filed by residents of Japan and 4,457 (＋7.5% compared to 2011) were filed by residents of overseas countries and regions.

Forward-looking FA Pendency of Design Patent Applications

JPO announced that the Forward-looking FA(First action) Pendency of design patent applications filed in 2012 was 6.3 months, shortened by 0.3 months compared to applications filed in 2011. And JPO estimates that SA ( average pendency from FA to Final action ) of design patent applications examined first in 2012 is 11.2 months, shortened by 0.4 months compared to in 2011.

Trends of Design Patent Applications by Non-residents

In recent years the Design Patent Applications filed by non-residents at JPO have been increasing steadily. Korea was outstanding regarding the most recent increases in 2012.

Trends of Design Patent Applications filed at Main IP Offices from Japan

As for the overseas application, design patent applications filed at main world IP office from Japan in recent years are shown at table 3.
The number of applications filed in China from Japan continue to rise steadily in these several years.