GENEVA: China is on its way to becoming the world leader in international patent filings, and should overtake the top spot from the United States within three years, the UN said yesterday, reports AFP.

A record 243,500 international patent applications were filed last year, a hike of 4.5 percent from a year earlier, the World Intellectual Property Organisation said in its annual report. These patents “represent the best new technology that is arising in the world,” WIPO chief Francis Gurry told journalists in Geneva.

The US kept the top ranking, which it has held for the past four decades, with American-based companies and individuals filing 56,624 applications, or nearly a quarter of the global total. But it was the rapid growth in international patent filings from China, which passed Japan to reach second place, that drove the global increase, WIPO said.

Chinese companies and individuals filed a total of 48,882 international patents last year, marking a hike of 13.4 percent from a year earlier, the UN agency said.