On April 26, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) celebrates the World Intellectual Property Day. The date is set by the Member States of WIPO at a meeting of the General Assembly in October 1999 with the aim of increasing general understanding of intellectual property. April 26th is the day on which in 1970 the Convention establishing WIPO entered into force.
Every year WIPO commemorates the Intellectual property day with different activities and events. This year the Organization has decided to take a closer look at green innovation and sustainable technology, under the timely theme Innovate for a Green Future.
The campaign also celebrates the many inspiring inventors and creators around the world who are betting on a green future – the women, men and young people who are working on cleaner alternatives to legacy fossil-fuel-based technologies and better and more sustainable food and natural resource management systems, and who are using the IP system to support their work and its uptake and use in society.
WIPO analyzed international patent filings via it’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in four categories of green energy technologies. These covered:
- alternative energy production, notably renewable energy technologies;
- energy conservation technologies;
- green transportation; and
- nuclear power generation.
The data are based on the WIPO International Patent Classification (IPC) Green Inventory, which tracks patents related to green energy innovation.
Among the findings:
- PCT applications containing at least one IPC green energy code, grew to 16,940 applications in 2019. This represents just over 6% of the total number of PCT applications filed in 2019.
- “Efficient use technologies” have increased by 9% since 2013, driven by energy conservation technologies and transportation-related innovation.
- Overall green innovation growth has been hindered by a drop in alternative energy technologies, which fell 18% since 2013.
- The top five origins in 2019 (Japan, China, U.S., Germany, and the Republic of Korea) accounted for over 76% of all PCT green applications.
WIPO will not organize any physical events, and encourages the World IP Day community to move celebrations to virtual channels.
