Applications for intellectual property rights surge

Macao Economic Services (DSE) received a total of 1,272 applications for intellectual property registration in the MSAR last month, up 38.7 per cent from 917 applications a month earlier, as more people requested to register trademarks.
According to the official information of DSE, a total of 1,210 applications were filed for trademark registration in the month of March, which represents an increase of 37.8 per cent year-on-year from 878 applications in February.
Meanwhile, the government bureau received 24 requests to register invention patents, and 20 others for extension of current invention patents.
Some other 14 applications were submitted to DSE for registering industrial design or models, while only one applicant applied to register a utility patent, and three others applied for name and emblem of establishment registration.
Accumulatively, some 2,998 applications for registering intellectual property rights in the territory were submitted to the economic department in the first quarter of the year.
The number, compared to 3,158 applications for the fourth quarter of 2016, represents a decrease of 5.1 per cent although total applications for registering invention patents quadrupled to 40 quarter-to-quarter.
During the three-month period, the number of applications for trademark registration fell by 4.6 per cent year-on-year to 2,834, while that for extending current invention patents fell 21.9 per cent quarter-to-quarter to 82.
The number of applications for utility patent registration and for industrial design or models both went down by 40 per cent quarter-to-quarter, amounting to 3 and 36, respectively; registrations of name and emblem of establishment decreased by 57.1 per cent quarter-to-quarter to three.