Telecoms companies head the list of top patent filers in 2015, with Huawei Technologies leading for the second consecutive year with 3,898 published applications, or an additional 456 applications over 2015. Qualcomm Incorporated was the second largest applicant in 2015, with 2,442 published applications, while China’s ZTE Corporation ranked third with 2,155 PCT applications, according to data released by the World Intellectual Property Organization.

Among dozens of technical fields, computer technology and digital communication saw the largest numbers of filings in 2015, each exceeding 16,000.Computer technology with 16,385 published applications - or 8.2% of the total - accounted for the largest share of applications, followed by digital communication (8%), electronic machinery (7.3%) and medical technology (6.3%).

Hewlett-Packard Development Company of the U.S. is the largest filer for computer technology, followed by Huawei Technologies and Qualcomm. For digital communication, Huawei Technologies, ZTE and Qualcomm are the top applicants. As for electronic machinery, Mitsubishi Electric is the largest applicant followed by two other Japanese companies, Panasonic Intellectual Property Management and Toyota Jidosha. Philips Electronics, Olympus Corporation and Ethicon Endo-Surgery Inc. of the U.S. accounted for the largest shares of medical technology applications.

Overall, Japan's Mitsubishi Electric came in at No. 5, joining Sony in the top 10. Toyota Motor, Panasonic, Hitachi and Sharp were among the top 20 applicants. South Korea's Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics increased their patent output for the year, landing at No. 4 and No. 7 respectively. Chinese, Japanese and South Korean companies thus occupied six out of the top 10 spots.

The U.S. remained the largest user of the system, followed by Japan and China. But China filed 17% more patents in 2015 than in 2014, compared to a 7% decline in U.S. applications and a slim 4% growth in filings from Japan.