According to the new WIPO figures, China was responsible for one-third of the world's patent applications last year, once again driving strong global growth despite stalling innovation in Europe and Japan. Applications from China grew by 26.4 per cent, increasing its global share from almost 28 per cent to 32.1 per cent in a year and topped the list, followed by US and Japan. By contrast, the USA remain the world leader in terms of patents in force, with 26 per cent of the 9.45 million total, followed by Japan and China. The big increase of China’s patent applications show that China is shifting from manufacturing to a knowledge-based economy, from “'made in China' to 'created in China'”, as WIPO Director General Francis Gurry said. (The other important statistics are available on WIPO.) The gLAWcal Team LIBEAC project Friday, 19 December2014 (Source: China Daily)