Patenting has never been more popular. Applications have reached record levels at the world’s main patent offices — fuelled by a sustained increase in applications from Asia. Patent filings by Chinese companies outside their home country have risen 30-fold so far this century.

The boom is an encouraging sign for future economic growth, as companies intensify their efforts to turn the results of research into innovative products and services.

The European Patent Office (EPO) received 160,000 applications last year, up 4.8 per cent on 2014. The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) reported a 1.7 per cent increase to 218,000 in filings under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) which provides some international harmonisation. These numbers conceal a strong tilt towards Asia, which has more than doubled its share of PCT applications since 2005 and accounted for 43 per cent of last year’s global total.