India climbed from tenth to fifth in patent filings
Patent applications filed by residents, world rank among reporting countries, 2014 vs 2024.
- 1. India now has more working-age people than China
- 2. India's UPI now handles 86% as many payments as Visa
- 3. Indian students now outnumber Chinese students in the US
- 4. India's GitHub developers outnumber China's, Brazil's and Japan's combined
- 5. India's stock market grew 23-fold since 2000
- 6. Indian phone users now average 25.7 GB a month
- 7. India's metro network quadrupled in a decade
- 8. India now ships over a third of world rice exports
- 9. India went from 1% to 37% of Russia's crude sales
- 10. India's wild tigers have more than doubled since 2006
- 11. Two in three rickshaws sold in India are electric
- 12. Indians now file more patents at home than Germans
- 13. India published more science papers than Germany and Britain combined
- 14. India now holds more foreign reserves than Saudi Arabia
- 15. Open defecation in India fell from 73% to 7%
- 16. India's sun and wind now outproduce Germany's
- 17. India's landlines have nearly doubled since 2020
- 18. India's debit card payments have fallen by three quarters
- 19. India climbed from tenth to fifth in patent filings
India's world rank for patent filings by residents in 2024, up from 10th in 2014 and 7th in 2019.
India's filings grew from 12,040 to 63,217 in ten years, while Germany's fell from 48,154 to 40,085.
Asian countries among the five biggest filers in 2024: China, Japan, Korea and India; in 2014 the fifth was Germany.
the numbers & method
| 2014 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| China | 801,135 | 1,672,001 |
| United States | 291,275 | 270,295 |
| Japan | 265,959 | 237,169 |
| Korea | 164,073 | 195,786 |
| Germany | 48,154 | 40,085 |
| Russia | 24,072 | 21,502 |
| United Kingdom | 15,196 | 11,105 |
| France | 14,500 | 12,751 |
| Iran | 13,683 | 8,314 |
| India | 12,040 | 63,217 |
Claim types Fact
Patent applications by residents (IP.PAT.RESD), World Bank WDI, last updated 2026-10-08, compiled from WIPO statistics; read from the World Bank API via the progrss vault (wb-wdi). 2014 → 2024: China 801,135 → 1,672,001; United States 291,275 → 270,295; Japan 265,959 → 237,169; Korea 164,073 → 195,786; Germany 48,154 → 40,085; Russia 24,072 → 21,502; United Kingdom 15,196 → 11,105; France 14,500 → 12,751; Iran 13,683 → 8,314; India 12,040 → 63,217 (19,454 in 2019). World ranks are progrss calculations among the countries the World Bank reports in each year (114 in 2014, 115 in 2019, 121 in 2024). The chart shows the ten biggest filers of 2014 and ranks them among themselves; for India these equal its world ranks. In 2024 Turkey (10th, 10,004) and Italy (11th, 9,120) were also ahead of Iran (12th). Filings measure inventive activity, not patents granted or their quality.
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