Countries by Trademark applications, nonresident, by count

Ranking 2021

Analysis

This metric counts trademark applications filed by nonresidents with a country's intellectual property office. A trademark is a sign capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one enterprise from those of other enterprises. Trademarks are protected by intellectual property rights. A non-resident application refers to an application filed with the IP office of or acting on behalf of a state or jurisdiction in which the first-named applicant in the application is not domiciled. Class count is used to record filings. The unit is an absolute count of applications. Data come from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code IP.TMK.NRCT, for data year 2021. The dataset covers 156 countries, with 89.7% of entries drawn from the last seven years and 100% classified as official data. Twenty extreme outliers were identified at the 3-standard-deviation threshold, and the value range spans 140 to 347,735, a spread of over 248,000 percent.

The top of the ranking is concentrated among large, high-income economies and major trading hubs. The United States (rank 1, 347,735) and China (rank 2, 261,982) are separated by roughly 86,000 applications. The United Kingdom (rank 3, 227,170) and Canada (rank 4, 109,335) follow, with Japan (rank 5, 94,825) and Australia (rank 6, 76,801) rounding out the top six. Switzerland (rank 7, 70,091), the Russian Federation (rank 8, 68,261), Korea (rank 9, 60,825), and Mexico (rank 10, 57,324) complete the top ten. High nonresident counts in these countries reflect large consumer markets and robust legal frameworks that attract foreign trademark filings.

Several counterintuitive placements appear in the mid-tier and lower ranks. Liechtenstein (rank 52, 8,801) and Monaco (rank 53, 8,517) both have populations well under 50,000 yet rank above Spain (rank 47, 9,520) and Italy (rank 42, 11,299) only marginally; their relatively high counts per capita stand out. Cambodia (rank 43, 10,855) and Paraguay (rank 44, 10,627) rank above several larger European economies including Poland (rank 70, 6,889) and Portugal (rank 76, 5,406). Germany, one of the world's largest economies, ranks only 24th at 26,098, well below smaller jurisdictions. At the lower end, countries such as Vanuatu (rank 155, 146) and Somalia (rank 156, 140) recorded minimal nonresident activity.

Several data limitations apply to this metric. The class-count methodology means that a single application covering multiple product classes is counted multiple times, inflating figures for offices that use class-based counting relative to those that count applications. Not all countries reported data for 2021: only 78.8% of the 156 countries have data from the latest reference year, meaning some values may reflect prior years. Reporting practices vary across IP offices, which can affect cross-country comparability. The metric captures filing volume only and says nothing about application outcomes, grant rates, or the commercial value of the trademarks filed.

Methodology

Data are drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code IP.TMK.NRCT, for the reference year 2021. The metric measures the count of trademark applications filed by nonresidents with a country's intellectual property office. Per the source definition: a trademark is a sign capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one enterprise from those of other enterprises. Trademarks are protected by intellectual property rights. Non-resident application refers to an application filed with the IP office of or acting on behalf of a state or jurisdiction in which the first-named applicant in the application is not domiciled. Class count is used to record filings. The dataset covers 156 countries, exceeding the 80-country coverage threshold. 89.7% of entries have data from the last seven years, and 100% of datapoints are classified as official quality. Twenty extreme outliers were flagged at the 3-standard-deviation threshold. The value range is 140 to 347,735, representing a spread of over 248,000%. Average year-over-year volatility is 18.7%, within the 50% acceptability threshold. Only 78.8% of countries have data confirmed for 2021 specifically, meaning some values may originate from adjacent years.

Sources

• World Bank