Trademark Filing Trends for Japanese Applicants: Domestic vs. Abroad

Using the WIPO Statistical Database's origin-to-destination filing matrix for 2014 to 2024, this analysis looks at:

It's part of a wider look at this same question across a dozen major filing nationalities, covered in full here, if you'd like the broader comparison alongside the Japanese-specific detail below.

In 2024, Japanese-origin applicants filed 157,080 trademark applications worldwide. Of those, 116,253 (74.0%) were filed only with the Japan Patent Office (JPO), and 40,827 (26.0%) were filed abroad.

Put another way: for roughly every three applications a Japanese applicant files at home, about one is also filed abroad, a ratio of 0.35 international filings for every domestic one.

Japan's domestic share moved sharply higher early in the decade and has stayed there since, rather than drifting gradually.

Source: WIPO Statistical Database, applicant origin-to-destination office filing data, 2014 to 2024.

Domestic share jumped from 64.6% in 2014 to 75.7% by 2016, driven by domestic filing volume climbing sharply (from 100,044 to 133,335 applications) while outbound filing fell. Since that jump, domestic share has held remarkably steady, staying within a couple of points of 74-75% for eight straight years through 2024, even as both domestic and outbound volumes have gradually declined from their mid-decade peaks. 

Looking at 2024, Japanese outbound filings spread widely across Asia alongside the more familiar Western destinations:

The US leads, but only narrowly, accounting for roughly 9% of all Japanese outbound filings. What stands out is how much of the rest of the top ten is concentrated in Asia: South Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam together account for a larger combined share than the US, EU, and UK put together, a clear reflection of how closely Japanese manufacturing and export activity tracks regional supply chains.

Japan draws a meaningful amount of foreign filing activity relative to its own domestic volume. Of the 158,088 total applications filed with the JPO in 2024, 41,835 (26.5%) came from applicants based outside Japan, roughly one in four of all Japanese filing activity. The largest foreign filer nationalities were:

China is, by a clear margin, the largest source of foreign filing into Japan, roughly double the next largest source, the United States, with South Korea rounding out a top three that together accounts for well over half of all foreign filing activity in the country.

A moderate pool of outbound filing is only half the picture; the other half is how it's getting filed. Our earlier analysis of Madrid System adoption rates found that the share of total Japanese filing activity arriving via Madrid has stayed fairly flat over the same period, moving from 10.3% in 2014 to 9.8% in 2024, with only small fluctuations year to year. Unlike markets with a clear shift toward or away from Madrid, direct filing has simply remained the dominant, stable default throughout.

Japan is a market where domestic filing rose sharply early in the decade and has held steady near three-quarters of total activity ever since, where outbound filings spread broadly across Asia rather than concentrating on the West, and where foreign filing into the domestic office is led decisively by China.

For firms handling outbound work for Japanese clients, a serious regional Asia-Pacific filing strategy matters as much as covering the US and EU, and direct filing has remained the stable, unchanging default throughout the decade. Trama's WIPO cost and risk calculator can help size up the Madrid versus direct filing decision for any specific Japan-outbound combination.

For how Japan compares to other major filing nationalities, and the aggregate trend across all of them, see the full WIPO trademark filing analysis.