China replaces US as world's top patent filer for 1st time in over 4 decades

China replaced the US as the top patent application filer in the world in 2019 for the first time in over four decades, the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization said. China filed 58,990 applications under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty as against the US' 57,840. China and the US were followed by Japan, Germany and South Korea in filing patent applications.