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Generative AI, which produces text, images, computer code and
even music from existing information, is exploding with more
than 50,000 patent applications filed in the past decade,
according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO),
which oversees a system for countries to share recognition of
patents.
A quarter of them were filed in 2023 alone, it said.
"This is a booming area this is an area that is growing at
increasing speed. And it's somewhere that we expect to grow even
more," Christopher Harrison, WIPO Patent Analytics Manager, told
reporters.
More than 38,000 GenAI inventions were filed by China between
2014-2023 versus 6,276 filed by the United States over the same
period, WIPO said.
Harrison said the Chinese patent applications covered a broad
area of sectors from autonomous driving to publishing to
document management.
South Korea, Japan and India were ranked third, fourth and fifth
respectively, with India growing at the fastest rate, the data
showed.
Among the top applicants were China's ByteDance - which owns
video app TikTok - Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, and
Microsoft, a backer of startup OpenAI which created ChatGPT.
While chatbots with the ability to mimic human discourse are
already being widely used by retailers and others to improve
customer service, GenAI has the potential to transform many
other economic sectors like science, publishing, transportation
or security, WIPO's Harrison said.
"The patent data suggests this is an area that is going to have
a profound impact across many different industrial sectors going
forward," said WIPO's Harrison, highlighting the scientific
sector where GenAI-created molecules have the potential to
expedite drug development.
WIPO said it expects a further wave of patents to be filed soon
and plans to release a future update of the data, possibly using
GenAI to illustrate the trend.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
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