Alternate realities: geopolitics and IP in 2025

Marking its 30th anniversary, the EPO released Scenarios for the Future to explore the shape and legitimacy of IP regimes that could plausibly evolve over the span of 18 years:

• Market Rules – where business interests hold sway
• Whose Game? – where the politics of nations prevail
• Trees of Knowledge – where social drivers hold the reins
• Blue Skies – where technology prescribes direction

The second scenario, Whose Game?, envisages a world defined by geopolitical change, specifically, the emergence of Asian powers as rivals to those in the West. This shift leads to the rise of protectionism in the form of a Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA) Treaty spanning Europe and North America and other regional trade agreements that exist in uneasy counterbalance. 

The scenario posits an IP world split along fissures of principles, practicalities and pragmatism. On one side, a waning TAFTA sphere sees patent rights increasingly constricted, while on the other, an emerging Asia-South America bloc uses the same to exert technological influence and dominate a new knowledge economy.

The result of this factiousness is that the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement is sidelined. Globally, the patent system comes under intense strain, particularly in the field of medicine, and different regions establish their own health-related IP systems. In many poorer countries, the focus is on publicly financed research and development, open-source distribution, protection of traditional knowledge and, ultimately, wholesale IP piracy to overcome disparities of access.

Asia as an IP powerhouse

While the scenario correctly identified the rise of Asia in patenting, it understated how pronounced this would be and how concentrated in China. According to statistics published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), patent applications in China grew more than 10-fold in just 16 years, from 161,108 in 2007 (when the Scenarios report was published) to 1,642,582 in 2023. During the same period, the number of resident applications per million inhabitants in China increased from 116.1 to 1079.1.

Moreover, China has become deeply integrated into the international patent system. The country is the biggest source of Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications (filing nearly 70,000 in 2023), and the proportion of PCT applications published in Chinese increased from 3.7% in 2009 to 24.3% in 2023.

India has not developed at the same rate, but there are signs it is catching up: Patent applications more than doubled between 2018 and 2023, from 29,619 to 64,510. In 2023, India recorded the largest rise in PCT applications of any country (44.6%) and ranked 11th overall for number of such applications filed.

The overall prestige of Asia is demonstrated by the fact that Asian countries accounted for more than 55% of PCT applications in 2023 – compared to just over 40% in 2013. For the seventh year in a row, Chinese IT company Huawei Technologies was the number one PCT applicant, and 23 out of the top 30 business applicants came from Asia (10 from China, 10 from Japan and three from the Republic of Korea).

This participation is somewhat at odds with the Whose Game? scenario, which foresaw "a cavalier attitude to intellectual property" among businesses in emerging and developed economies. A pervasive commercial disdain was seen as resulting in widespread infringement and the poor enforcement of IP treaties, principally centered around less economically mature nations. In fact, while infringement remains a challenge in many countries, the standout story of the past decade is how technological progress in China — and, to a lesser extent, India — has been driven by investments in patent protection and a growing recognition of IP rights. This shift is exemplified by China's establishment of specialist IP courts.

However, that fortification of domestic IP structures has done little to quell outside allegations of state-actor espionage, with hackers reportedly siphoning off trillions of dollars' worth of IP from multinational corporations in recent years. Such is the concern that the FBI and MI5, the domestic security services of the United States and the United Kingdom, issued an unprecedented joint statement in 2022, warning business owners of the threat to their innovations.

Regionalism in the ascent

One point where the scenario resonates loudly is in identifying the rise of protectionism and a backlash against globalization. Indeed, from the perspective of 2025, this has arguably gone further than was envisioned: The scenario did not conceive of Brexit, the sanctions imposed on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine or the extent of tariffs proposed by the United States' second Trump presidency.

Of especial note have been the termination or suspension by the United States and EPO of bilateral Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) agreements with Russia's Rospatent agency and the Eurasian Patent Office. These moves occurred shortly after a Russian Presidential Decree of March 6, 2022, set the compensation for patent infringement at zero percent if an IP owner hails from an "unfriendly country," effectively rescinding all enforcement rights for these nationals.

Additional, though less combative, examples of regionalism in the last dozen years include China's Belt and Road Initiative (begun in 2013) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which currently comprises member states ranging from Canada and Chile to Japan, Vietnam and Australia (the United Kingdom became the 12th member in 2024).

However, neither of these projects has yet had a significant impact on IP protection. The one regional IP system that has continued to expand is the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg), which has 39 member states as of 2025. In addition to all of these countries, patents granted by the EPO, the executive body of the EPOrg, can also be extended to Bosnia and Herzegovina and validated in five further jurisdictions: Morocco, Moldova, Tunisia, Cambodia and Georgia. Last year, validation agreements were signed with Laos and Costa Rica, with the details of implementation yet to be finalized. Once these come into force, a European Patent grant could be enacted in up to 47 states on four continents.

Reaction to globalization

The scenario was probably correct to identify 1995's TRIPS Agreement as the high-water mark of globalization in IP. It is hard to imagine that such a treaty could be negotiated today, perhaps even less so than in the starkly bifurcated Asian-Western order witnessed by an alternate 2025. Nevertheless, calling TRIPS "effectively marginalised" in today's world would be going too far. TRIPS remains vital and has arguably increased in relevance (reciprocal sanctions notwithstanding) as more countries have joined the World Trade Organization (WTO).

An example of this continuing import originates in the Doha Declaration of 2001. This commitment to securing avenues for affordable medicines in poorer countries led to the permanent incorporation of a protocol amending TRIPS in 2005, a decision which finally came into effect in 2017 after two-thirds of WTO members ratified it. Thanks to the waiver introduced, WTO member states decided to allow developing countries to authorize – via compulsory licensing or otherwise – the use of patented subject matter for COVID-19 vaccines (but not therapeutics or diagnostics).

Further evidence that the level of anti-globalization in IP does not match that observed in the scenario came in May 2024. The adoption of a WIPO Treaty on IP, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge saw a multilateral agreement recognizing the concerns and contributions of indigenous peoples and local communities. When the international law enters into force, patent applications based on genetic resources and / or associated traditional knowledge will be subject to a new disclosure requirement.

Though negotiations took some 25 years, they resulted in what was the first WIPO treaty to be secured in over a decade. As WIPO Director General Daren Tang said at the time: "Through this, we are showing that the IP system can continue to incentivize innovation while evolving in a more inclusive way, responding to the needs of all countries and their communities."

The successful negotiation of the 2024 treaty and the 2022 decision on compulsory licensing prove that patents have not become ignored – as the scenario depicted – but remain critical for innovation and development. Despite a retreat from universality in IP, recent legislative achievements show that patents, though monopolies all the same, can be reconciled with outreach. When it comes to advancing the limits of research and technology, most countries still have much more in common than not.