According to a UN report, China files six times as many patent infringement claims as the United States.
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China has filed the most patent applications for generative artificial intelligence (AI) inventions in the world, far ahead of second-placed United States, according to a report by the United Nations intellectual property agency.
Generative AI includes inventions such as chatbots and the creation of new content in the form of text, images, video and sound.
According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), more than 50,000 patent applications have been filed on the technology in the past decade.
More than 25% of patent applications were filed last year alone, with over 38,000 inventions related to generative AI filed in China, six times the number filed in the United States between 2014 and 2023 (6,276).
Top patent filers include China’s ByteDance, which owns TikTok, e-commerce company Alibaba Group and US-based ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
South Korea came in third, followed by Japan and India, the UK in sixth place and Germany.
The report said ChatGPT’s launch in November 2022 marked a turning point as its platform “made advanced GenAI programs, especially large-scale language models (LLMs), more accessible to all users.”
However, OpenAI said it appears to have filed a patent for its research work in early 2023.
“One possible explanation for this is that OpenAI was originally a non-profit company that has since transitioned from a non-profit to a ‘capped’ for-profit model. Another explanation may be that OpenAI chooses to keep its IP (intellectual property) in the form of trade secrets,” the report said.
According to the report, GenAI’s patents span a variety of fields, including life sciences, and could one day be useful in designing new molecules and advancing drug development.
“GenAI has emerged as a transformative technology with the potential to transform the way we work, live and play,” said WIPO Director General Darren Tang.
