１． Global trends in patent and utility model applications
The figure below shows the global trends in patent and utility model applications since 2000. The bar graph shows thenumber of applications filed with national offices or regional offices. In recent years, the number of patent and utility model
applications, particularly to the Chinese Patent Office, has been increasing rapidly. Even if a Japanese patent family exists inChinese patent documents, it may not be exactly the same content as Chinese documents, so we have to read the original
Chinese document for deep understanding.
The percentage of documents that can be read in Japanese is decreasing every year (blue line), while the percentage ofdocuments that can be read only in Chinese is increasing (red line). Therefore, it is insufficient to read patent documents onlyin Japanese or in Japanese/English.
Number of patent and utility model applications worldwide

×10K％

600

80
70

500

60
400

50

300

40
30

200

20

100

1000
2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

JPO

USPTO

EPO

CNIPA

KIPOOthers

Documents that can be read in Japanese (%)

Documents that can be read only in Chinese (%)

2017

2018

2019

Applications of each country is calculatedusing the WIPO IP Statistics Data Center.
The percentage of documents is calculatedusing Japio-GPG/FX.

1

２． Applications trends by Japanese applicants
The figure below shows the trend in applications by Japanese applicants. In recent years, the numberof domestic applications (applications to the JPO) by Japanese has been decreasing, while that offoreign applications has been increasing slightly. The largest number of applications is filed in theUnited States, followed by China, Europe, and South Korea.
Therefore, there is a growing need to translate Japanese to English, Chinese and Korean for foreign
applications.
Number of patent and utility model applications by
Japanese applicants (details of foreign applications)

Number of patent and utility model applications by
Japanese applicants (domestic/foreign)45000020000040000018000016000035000014000030000012000025000010000020000080000

150000

60000

100000

40000
20000

50000

00

domestic

foreign

US

CN

EP

KR

DE

IN

TH

CA

AU

Calculated with WIPO IP Statistics Data Center2

３． Translation fees for patent documents
According to the Japan Translation Federation, the translation fee of a patent document for an English to Japaneseis 26 yen per English word, and that for a Japanese to English is 30 yen per Japanese character. (See “Standardtranslation fee” https://www.jtf.jp/tips/price.)
The figure below shows the average number of characters and words in the patent specification. The number has
been increasing in both JP and US applications. In recent years, the average US document consists of about 9,200 words,
and the average JP document consists of 16,000 characters (according to Japio IP AI Research Center). Manualtranslation of a patent specification can be expensive: about 240,000 yen per document for English to Japanesetranslation, and about 480,000 yen for Japanese to English translation. In addition to the translation work, manualtranslation involves other steps such as estimate, ordering, and delivery, which are time-consuming.
By utilizing Japio-AI Translation, the cost and time for translation can be greatly reduced.
Average number ofcharacters (JP document)

Average number of words(US document)）

18,00010,00016,0008,000

14,00012,000

6,000

10,000
8,000

4,000

6,000
4,000

2,000

2,000
0-

Characters of JP document(%)

Words of US documents(%)

・The horizontal axis shows the year ofpublication of the document.
・In each year, 2000 documents wererandomly selected and the average numberof characters or words in the specification
was counted.

3４．Advantages in Japio-AI Translation
Japio-AI Translation allows machine translation from English, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, French,Russian, German to Japanese. This covers more than 92% of the languages used in the world's stored
patent documents. It also covers all the languages used in the top 10 countries’ patent documents cited bythe IP5 (JPO, USPOT, EPO, CNIPA, and KIPO) over the past 10 years.
In addition, as introduced in "2. Application trends by Japanese applicants", we can also provide machinetranslation from Japanese to English, Chinese, and Korean, which are highly demanded in the patent field.
Top 10 countries/organizations’ patent documents
cited by IP5 over the past 10 years

Ratio of stored patent documents worldwide

EP KR WO
DE 6% 5%
GB
4%
6%
3%
US14%

JP
21%

FR3%
CA2%

AU2%

ES2%
TW2%
RU1%
SU1%
AT1%
Other8%JPCNWOEPKRotherDEGB

US

CN
21%

※Calculated by Japio based on DocDB.
The term “citation” includes not only the examiner‘s citation but also documents provided by the applicant. It alsoincludes all citation categories (X, Y, A...).

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