Intellectual property today pervades the economy and digital culture – from pharmaceutical formulas to music hits to movie characters – and its global activity is now enormous. Indeed, IP is often described as a “multi-trillion-dollar” asset class. Filings around the world continue to climb. For example, WIPO reports that a record 3.7 million patent applications were filed in 2024 (a 4.9% increase from 2023). This five-year surge has nearly doubled filings since 2010. Patent grants also rose – about 2.1 million patents were issued worldwide in 2024 (up ~5% from the year before) – bringing the total patents in force to roughly 19.7 million (a 6% rise). Meanwhile global trademark activity is vast: on the order of 11.7 million trademark applications filed in 2024, translating into about 8.3 million new trademark registrations (a 9.2% year‑on‑year jump). At the end of 2024 there were an estimated 93.2 million active trademark registrations worldwide, up 6.1% from 2023. Industrial designs saw more modest growth: roughly 1.22 million design applications in 2024 (about +2.6%), yielding around 972,000 design registrations (a +2.7% bounce back). In short, IP registration numbers are back to record levels after recent dips.

Regional patterns are striking. Asia dominates global filings – in 2024 about 70% of all patent applications were received by Asian offices – and Asia issues roughly 71% of patents granted. China alone filed 1.8 million patents last year (about three times more than the USPTO’s ~603,000), and now holds about half of all patents in force globally. Other Asian countries are growing fast too: India saw +19.1% patent filing growth and Finland +15.4% in 2024. Trademarks mirror this concentration: China’s trademark office handled the largest volume by far (about 7 million class‑counts vs. ~0.8 million at the USPTO), and in registrations China accounted for roughly 43.5% of all new trademark class‑counts in 2024. Together with the U.S., EU, India, and Brazil, these top five offices now issue over 60% of global trademark protections. In contrast, many developed economies have plateaued or even seen slight declines – e.g. Europe and Japan had muted growth while the UK and Canada saw small drops in IP filings in 2024.

Key technology trends are reshaping IP. Computer and digital technologies now generate a far larger share of patents: roughly 13% of all 2023 patent applications were in “computer technology,” a field growing at ~10% per year. Patents in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors, and green technology are surging. For instance, energy‑related patents (solar, wind, fuel cells, etc.) grew about 3.2% in 2023 to ~47,200 applications, with solar alone over half of those. At the European Patent Office, AI and computing fields are now the leading categories, and globally thousands of renewable energy patents are filed each year. Many patent offices are speeding reviews for “green” inventions. These trends echo corporate R&D patterns: tech, biomedicine, and cleantech firms are driving much of the new IP.

The global IP market is also deepening. Licensing of IP continues to be big business: one estimate puts the global patent licensing market on the order of $150 billion per year (roughly a 7% annual growth to 2024). Industries – from pharmaceuticals (R&D patents) to tech (software, semiconductors) to entertainment (copyright and trademark licensing) – routinely generate multi‑million‑dollar licensing deals. Cross-border licensing is rising, too, especially in Asia‑Pacific. However, full economic data is elusive because so much IP commerce happens privately or via royalties. Enforcement of rights remains a challenge: for example EU customs and police seized 112 million counterfeit items in 2024 (worth about €3.8 billion), roughly half at borders and half in domestic markets, showing how global trade routes are plagued by piracy. (Trademarks made up ~59% of the infringements and copyright ~38%.)

Intellectual property policy and law are wrestling with these shifts. Recent years have seen new statutes and courts (e.g. the EU’s Unified Patent Court, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Section 101 rulings) attempting to balance innovation incentives with competition. Regulators are also debating AI: the EU passed a landmark AI Act in early 2025 that, among many things, touches on AI’s use of copyrighted data. But as one WIPO analysis notes, the global IP ecosystem is still “stuck” in centuries‑old legal processes. Basic problems persist: registering a patent or securing a license can take months of paperwork and lawyers. By design IP systems favor large incumbents (big companies or wealthy rights‑holders) who can afford costly filings and enforcement. In many countries, only a tiny fraction of creators can even afford proper licenses for their work. Not surprisingly, inventorship and creative rights remain unequal – for example, women account for only about 18% of inventors in published international patent applications.

In this context of booming IP output but nagging friction, new digital solutions are emerging. Blockchain and Web3 advocates argue that IP can be made “programmable” and self‑executing. The Story Protocol is a prominent example. Billed as “the world’s IP blockchain,” Story is a permissionless network built specifically for intellectual property. It is explicitly designed to meet the modern challenges of IP – especially in an era of AI and digital remixing. Story’s creators note that modern AI models are often trained on copyrighted content without clear permission, leading to a “tragedy of the commons” where creators are essentially treated as free data sources. Traditional courts and contracts struggle to handle millions of new digital works or automated AI-generated art. Story’s solution is to “onramp” IP onto a blockchain so that rights and licenses are embedded in code.

In practice, each creative asset (an image, song, codebase, character design, etc.) can be registered on Story as a tokenized IP asset. Technically, Story represents an IP asset as an ERC-721 NFT in a global on-chain registry. Linked to that NFT is an IP Account (a special token-bound account) that holds metadata and settings. Importantly, the actual usage permissions and fees are encoded via smart contracts. Story uses a “Proof of Creativity” protocol with modular components: for example, a Licensing module lets a creator publish a legally binding license template for their work. Anyone can then mint a license token that grants specific usage rights under those terms. A Royalty module automates revenue splits – the original creator can define what percentage of any subsequent sales or uses goes back to them, ensuring automated royalty payouts. A Dispute module (powered by on-chain arbitration like UMA) provides a built-in way to flag improper use or payment issues. In effect, the Story blockchain and its ecosystem handle licensing, attribution and micropayments in code.

At the legal interface Story introduces a Programmable IP License (PIL). This is a standardized contract template (based on copyright law) that ties the on-chain token to real-world legal terms. As the Story documentation explains, the PIL acts like a “backstop” similar to how a stablecoin (USDC) is pegged to fiat. It ensures that off-chain law recognizes the token’s terms. In other words, creators agree up front to a license (say, “commercial use with 10% royalty back to me”) and then smart contracts enforce that automatically. This bridges “code and law,” making the license machine-readable and self-executing. The Story network is slated to go live soon (mainnet was anticipated in early 2025). Its backers include major crypto investors (A16Z Crypto, Samsung Next, etc.), reflecting confidence in IP tokenization. Story’s team emphasizes that their goal is to make IP liquid and global: they talk about “turning creative assets into programmable IP legos” that can be remixed and monetized across apps. In a recent interview, Story’s CEO described the project as a way to “protect, share, and license” creative works more easily by “bringing IP and copyright onchain” in a transparent way. This directly tackles the pain points of current IP systems – it removes the need for separate bilateral contracts in many cases, automates royalty tracking, and gives creators a simple public record of ownership and terms. For example, an artist could upload a digital sculpture to Story, specify a “creative commons” style license or a paid license via the PIL, and then anyone remixing or selling that sculpture must honor those smart-contract rules (with automatic tipping to the artist). In theory this also benefits downstream AI developers: they could license or even purchase training rights to vast art and media datasets on-chain, transparently compensating original creators.

While still new, Story Protocol exemplifies broader blockchain interest in IP. Other projects similarly explore NFT-based rights management or decentralized patent registries. These efforts respond to the same challenges outlined above: how to scale IP protection for the digital, AI-driven economy. Whether blockchain licensing will become mainstream remains to be seen, but it is a clear indication of where the IP ecosystem is moving.

In summary, the global IP landscape of 2025 is one of unprecedented scale, shaped by technology and globalization. Patents and trademarks continue rising to all‑time highs, especially in Asia, and new areas like computer and climate tech are driving innovation. At the same time, the tools and laws for managing IP are evolving: governments grapple with AI and digital content, and private platforms experiment with new models. The Story Protocol is an example of an emerging solution that tries to rewrite the rules by embedding IP rights directly into blockchain code. As one industry newsletter put it, Story is “revolutionizing the way creators protect, share, and license their work,” making licensing more automated and transparent. Together, these trends show an IP system in transition – vast in volume and value, but increasingly integrating the digital technologies that define our era.