China tops the list for the first time, with Huawei and Lantu breaking into the global top five!

On May 21, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) officially released the “Hague Yearly Review 2026,” fully disclosing the core data for global industrial design international registrations in 2025.

1. Global Data: Growth Across the Board, Reaching Historic

Highs By 2025, global companies will submit design applications through the Hague System to record highs.

Three trends can be seen from the data:
Trend 1: Enterprises are accelerating their overseas expansion. The simultaneous record of applications and design project counts means that design is no longer just an aesthetic attribute, but a core competitive element for companies expanding overseas markets and building differentiated product barriers.
Trend 2: Global review efficiency is improving. The annual registration volume growth rate (13.5%) was significantly higher than the application volume growth rate (9.4%), reflecting increasingly mature review processes in various countries, steadily improving the quality of enterprise application documents, and overall authorization efficiency and approval rates simultaneously improving.
Trend 3: The Hague system has become standard. The global number of valid registrations is approaching 68,000, with the stock continuing to expand, proving that the Hague model—’one application, multi-country protection’—has shifted from an early trial to a normalized, standardized intellectual property layout plan for multinational enterprises.

2. China Firmly Holds the World’s

Top Position in Application Volume In the 2025 Hague System country rankings, China holds the top spot globally with an absolute advantage.This achievement is not a short-term dividend but the result of China’s manufacturing industry upgrade, original design capability iteration, and overseas enterprise expansion. Relying on the global expansion of advantageous industries such as new energy vehicles, smart terminals, and smart homes, domestic companies have simultaneously completed overseas intellectual property layouts for design design, achieving a standardized approach of “product export, design support, and property rights first.” The growth in applications from The Hague is a true reflection of China’s real economy going global.

3. Global Enterprise Ranking Data

From the applicant perspective, by 2025, the world’s leading applicants in The Hague will be highly concentrated in the technology and automotive sectors, with two Chinese companies successfully entering the global top five, becoming the biggest highlights of the year.

Data shows:
First, Huawei is the only pure technology company on the top five list. Unlike automakers and comprehensive electronics giants, Huawei relies on a comprehensive layout in communication terminals, smart devices, and new energy sectors, maintaining its position as the world’s second most in high-quality and large quantities of original designs, demonstrating the hardcore design strength of Chinese tech companies.
Second, Lantu has more designs than Ferrari. Lantu Auto, established relatively recently, has a design reserve exceeding Ferrari’s, covering the entire vehicle styling, interior systems, smart cockpit, headlight kits, and other categories across the entire chain, making it a typical representative of high-end and ecological design strategies among Chinese new energy vehicle companies.
Third, automakers dominate the rankings. The automotive industry has become the core force of global exterior design innovation. Among the top five, three are automakers, indicating that under the wave of new energy and intelligent technologies, exterior design, interaction design, and eco-design have become core components of automotive product strength. Automakers lead the industry in both the depth and breadth of intellectual property layout.

4. Industry Trends: Cross-category Layout Becomes Mainstream

This WIPO report emphasizes new industry trends in cross-category design layout. Data shows that by 2025, 24% of global applications in The Hague will be cross-category layouts, with leading automakers and luxury brands showing particularly high cross-category layouts.

Cross-category layout means that companies no longer only protect individual products, but instead systematically protect upstream, downstream, and peripheral derivatives around the brand ecosystem. Currently, market competition has escalated from single-product competition to brand ecosystem competition. Cross-category layout can, on one hand, build a tight intellectual property moat, preventing infringement such as counterfeiting, riding on popularity, and malicious free-riding; On the other hand, it can lay the groundwork for future category extension and cross-industry brand upgrades by completing property rights in advance.

5. Important Rule Updates of the Hague System

In addition to annual statistics, this report officially announces several rule revisions effective July 1, 2026, involving ownership registration, official fee adjustments, and system upgrades, which will directly affect the costs and strategies of enterprises’ subsequent overseas design layouts.
1. New regulations for the designer information registration mechanism
have added a filing channel for original designer information. Applicants can use the dedicated form DM/10 to supplement or modify designer names, addresses, and other ownership information, improving the design work traceability system. This rule strengthens the protection of global original design rights and is especially critical for companies in cultural and creative industries, home furnishings, fashion, and high-end customization. In terms of fees, the single-case registration fee is 144 Swiss francs; For multi-item combination applications, the price is as low as 72 Swiss francs per item.
2. Some contracting parties have raised official fees, with slight adjustments to long-term deployment costs. Countries like Israel have raised official fees by 3%-5%, requiring companies with long-term product cycles and long-term overseas expansion to improve cost management.
At the same time, the Hague System continues to maintain fee reduction policies for small and micro enterprises, universities, and non-profit institutions, offering up to 40% discounts, continuously lowering the threshold for innovative entities to go global.
3. The official online application system has been fully upgraded
by WIPO to the eHague online submission system, supporting more drawing formats, optimizing upload and review processes, and shortening the regular application processing cycle to under 5 working days, greatly improving the efficiency of enterprises’ overseas expansion.

6. Conclusion
The report sends a very clear message: global industrial design protection has entered a period of rapid growth, and design innovation has become the core soft power of brand globalization. China has successfully reached the top through industrial upgrading and forward-looking planning, with Huawei and Lantu entering the world’s top five, rewriting the design landscape long dominated by Europe, the US, Japan, and South Korea.

From “Made in China” to “Designed in China,” from product exporting to prioritizing property rights—data has already proved: Chinese design has made its mark. In the future, as the Hague System rules continue to improve and enterprises’ awareness of intellectual property layout increases, Chinese original design will keep taking center stage on the global stage, becoming the core calling card for the high-quality global development of Chinese brands.

Official core data source: WIPO “Hague Yearly Review 2026”

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