Leading intellectual property practice Marks & Clerk has been named the UK’s top patent filer, having filed the highest number of Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications between January 2014 and December 2016 according to new data published by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
Operating from offices across the UK, including Manchester, and with offices in France and Luxembourg, Marks & Clerk is also named one of Europe’s top three filers.
Marks & Clerk’s first-place ranking highlights the increasing role of innovation in driving the UK economy. Innovators across the North West in particular have filed nearly 300 European Patent applications since October 2016.
The most popular patent application categories in Manchester include chemistry, health and lifesaving and scientific instruments.
Globally an estimated 233,000 international patent applications were filed in 2016 – an increase of 7.3 per cent and “the fastest increase since 2011”, according to the WIPO’s Global PCT Leaders Report. Of these, 5,496 patent applications were filed in the United Kingdom in 2016, a 3.9 per cent increase from the previous year.
Marks & Clerk is one of the world’s leading intellectual property practices with offices in Canada, Europe and Asia, and is consistently ranked one of the UK and Europe’s top filers of both patent and trade mark applications.
David Robinson, a Partner in Marks & Clerk’s Manchester office said:
“Manchester, and the wider North West region has established chemical, life science, engineering and digital industries – with knowledge hubs and science parks offering knowledge transfer facilities and funding. R&D leading to innovative developments is at the forefront of economic growth and the region has been a significant contributor to PCT application activity.
An application filed under the PCT system begins the process of obtaining patent protection in a large number of countries, including the US, China, Japan and many in Europe. PCT applications are particularly suitable for inventions where wide territorial protection is required for minimum initial cost, or where an applicant wishes to defer the cost of overseas patent protection for as long as possible.”