[JURIST] In a 7.8% increase from 2014, 2.9 million patent applications were placed worldwide in 2015 according to a new report [materials] released Wednesday by the UN World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) [official website]. Over one million of those patents were filed [UN News Centre report] in China, and over 500,000 were filed in the US. There was also a 26.6% increase from 2014 in trademarks filed in 2015, which marks the fastest growth in over 15 years. Applications for industrial design also rebounded and grew by 2.3%, up from a sharp decrease in 2014. WIPO Director General Francis Gurry [official profile] noted that it is encouraging that intellectual property filing has progressed in 2015, reflecting its “increasing importance in a globalized knowledge economy.”

Last month the US Supreme Court heard argument [JURIST report] in the case of Samsung Electronics Co. v. Apple [SCOTUSblog backgrounder]. The challenge involves interpretation of a portion of the US Code that provides that any person who applies a patented design “to any article of manufacture” is “liable … to the extent of his total profit.” The question is whether “total profit” considers only the income from the infringement, the screen and interface, or all of Samsung’s phone sales. The patent dispute [JURIST op-ed] between these two electronics giants is ongoing. Last month the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reinstated [JURIST report] a $120 million jury award owed to Apple by Samsung. In March the Supreme Court agreed to hear [JURIST report] Samsung’s appeal in another case against Apple. In January the US District Court for the Northern District of California granted [JURIST report] Apple’s motion for a permanent injunction against Samsung for infringing upon three software patents.