Patent services provider RWS inovia recently released its eighth annual report on global patent and IP trends.  In compiling "The 2017 U.S. Global Patent & IP Trends Indicator," RWS inovia, which produces products for PCT national phase entry and European patent validation, and provides IP translations and search services, surveyed more than 115 companies and universities in May 2017 to identify the trends having the greatest impact on the foreign filing strategies of patentees around the world.

In contrast with the first RWS Inovia report, which was based on surveys of U.S.-based companies and universities, the 2017 report has a more global focus, relying on surveys of patent applicants from six continents.  More specifically, 42.6% of survey respondents are based in the United States, 35.6% of respondents are based in Europe, and the remainder (21.8%) are based in Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Taiwan, Egypt, Turkey, India, China, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, and Australia.

The 2017 report also provides the following industry breakdown for survey respondents:  mechanical/engineering (17.8%), pharmaceuticals/biotech (15.8%), chemicals/materials (11.9%), university/association/non-profit (8.9%), IT/software/media (5.9%), and electrical/electronics (5.0%) (the remaining 34.7% of respondents were classified as "other," which in the 2016 report was described as encompassing manufacturing, telecommunications, teaching/research, consulting, pest control, and mining).  With regard to the size of respondents, the report notes that 41.6% of respondents had one to 100 employees, 18.8% had 101 to 1,000 employees, 22.8% had 1,001 to 10,000 employees, and 16.8% had more than 10,000 employees.  The report also indicates that 21.8% of survey respondents had no in-house patent attorneys or agents, 43.6% had one to four attorneys or agents, 16.8% had five to nine attorneys or agents, 8.9% had ten to 24 attorneys or agents, and 8.9% had 25 or more attorneys or agents.

The 2017 report points out that for U.S. applicants, the primary areas of concern include the overall low state of patent quality, effects of the America Invents Act (AIA) and post grant challenges with the change from first-to-invent to first-to-file, and the questionable patentability of certain subject matters with the fallout from the Alice Corp v. CLS Bank ruling (the latter being the primary concern of respondents last year).  For European applicants, the unitary patent was the main topic of concern (as it was last year) -- the 2017 report notes that 41.0% of respondents plan to use the system, 11.5% do not plan to use the system, and 47.5% are undecided.  For applicants outside the U.S. and Europe, topics of focus included the rapid development of China as a major patent hub, invalidity disputes, and lack of consistency between varying jurisdictions.

With respect to filing expectations, 56.8% of respondents said they filed as many patent applications as they expected to file in 2016 (down from 79.2% in last year's report), 10.2% filed more than they expected (up from 8.3%), and 32.9% filed less than they expected (up from 12.5%).  The 2017 report indicates that 36.8% of survey respondents filed between four and nineteen patents in 2016, 18.4% filed more than 100 patents, 16.1% filed 1-3 patents, 12.6% filed 20-49 patents, 10.3% filed no patents, and 5.8% filed 50-99 patents.  The report also notes that respondents filed more patents last year as compared with two years ago.

In addition, more than 41% respondents filed their patent families internationally in 2016, up from 34.3% last year, but still lower than the 49% and 52% of respondents that filed internationally in 2014 and 2013, respectively.  The report notes that 69.8% of those international filings were made using the PCT, 3.2% were made using the Paris Convention, and 27.0% were made using a combination of the PCT and Paris Convention (a similar breakdown was noted in the 2016 report).  For respondents using the PCT to file internationally, 77.4% respondents had used the European Patent Office as the International Searching Authority (up from 56% last year), 61.3% respondents used the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (down from 64%), 22.6% used the Korean IP Office (down from 31%), 11.3% used the Japan Patent Office, 9.7% used the IP Australia, 3.2% used the Russian Patent Office, and 1.6% used the Brazilian National Institute of IP (the remaining 25.8% used another search authority, including the Nordic Patent Institute, Swedish Patent Office, Spanish Patent Office, and Austrian Patent Office, or the information was not available).  With regard to the countries in which respondents regularly filed, the top thirteen jurisdictions were (with last year's ranking indicated in parentheses):

1. United States (1)
2. Europe (2)
3. China (3)
4. Japan (4)
5. Canada (5)
6. South Korea (8)
7. Brazil (9)
8. Australia (7)
9. India (6)
10. Russia (10)
11. South Africa (12)
12. Singapore (11)
13. ARIPO (–)

With respect to IP budgets, 33.8% of survey respondents experienced IP budget cuts in 2016 (of which 19.1% of respondents were experiencing budget cuts for the first time in recent years), which compared with 41.4% of respondents who experienced budget cuts in last year's report.  For respondents who had reduced foreign patenting costs in 2016, cost savings were achieved by filing in fewer countries (43.6%), bringing steps in-house (33.9%), consolidating foreign counsel (29.0%), negotiating with foreign counsel (22.6%), reducing costs on patent translations (21.0%), negotiating with U.S. or European counsel (19.8%), consolidating foreign counsel (19.4%), using non-law firm providers (16.1%), and consolidating local counsel (14.5%).