Requests for international patents reached a record 113,249 last year, of which more than one-third came from the United States, the World Intellectual Property Organisation said here Monday.
The requests for consideration by the Patent Co-operation Treaty, which provides for patents applicable in WIPO's 123 member countries, rose two percent from 2002.
Around 80 percent of those requests were granted, the organisation said.
The United States represented 36 percent of all requests, a small but steady decline from 37 percent in 2002, 40 percent in 2001 and 41 percent in 2000, according to WIPO deputy director general Francis Gurry.
"It is a very good measure of the technological capability of countries," Gurry told a news conference at the body's Geneva headquarters.
The US requests totalled 41,056 in 2003.
Japanese inventors put in the second biggest number of requests last year, with 15 percent of the total.
They surpassed Germans for the first time, while Britain and France were third and fourth.
The United States, Japan and the 27-member European Patent Convention accounted for 84 percent of all patent requests, WIPO said, adding that it marked a slight drop in favour of developing countries.
Those accounted for 11 percent of the requests.
"This is a reasonably small number, but a very positive sign," Gurry noted.
In order on WIPO's list of developing countries were South Korea, China, India, South Africa, Singapore, Brazil and Mexico.
Broken down by company, the Dutch group Philips turned in the most patent requests, followed by Siemens of Germany and Matsushita of Japan.
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