Strong trade mark growth: IP Australia's annual report
Recently, IP Australia released its annual IP Report. The report looks at statics, research and trends from 2025 for trade marks, patents, designs, copyright and plant breeders’ rights. This article will examine the key insights for trade marks and the encouraging signs for brand owners.
Overall trend - growth with record filings
In 2025, IP Australia sees a record 97,345 trade mark application filings. This represents a 13.3% increase from 2024 and marks the third consecutive year of growth.
The growth has come from both Australian applicants (15.1% increase) and international applicants (10.9% increase).
The findings reflect strong brand activity, increasing IP awareness and entrepreneurship among local businesses, while also demonstrating that Australia is an attractive market to overseas investors. The results appear to counter concerns that business confidence in Australia is subdued.
Here are some of the other key trends:
International applicants - China comes out on top with other countries rebounding
China remains the driver of incoming filings with applications naming Chinese owners growing 20.6% from 2024 levels.
For many years, the United States has been the leading origin of international applicants, but China now assumes that mantle. Chinese applicants currently account for 14.8% of total filings. While applications from the United States have been declining for a number of years, last year saw filings rebound from the United States as well as the UK, Germany and New Zealand with growth ranging from 4% - 10%.
The diversification of trade and growth of ecommerce may explain why Australia receives trade mark applications from 138 countries- the highest number in over a decade. Aside from traditional markets, strong growth also comes from Turkey (+41.1%), Singapore (+25.3%), Ireland (+23.2%) and India (+19.0%).
Shift toward direct filing?
Applicants can file directly in Australia or though the Madrid system. The 2025 statistics show that direct filings (+15.3%) is growing faster than Madrid filings (+4.8%). But the report correctly identifies that this statistic relates to the total number of filings and Australian applicants generally file directly.
A closer look at the data shows that even international applicants are increasingly foregoing Madrid and filing directly instead. Direct applications by overseas applicants increases by 15.3%. This trend is likely driven by Chinese applicants – the largest overseas filer group - tending to prefer filing directly with an IP office.
Class trends - services become more important
Applicants selected on average 1.75 classes per application. This figure is unsurprising. What is surprising is the strength of the service classes with these classes growing by 18.5% compared with +10.7% for goods classes.
Although class 35 remains the most popular class, the following service classes show significant growth:
- Class 36- financial services: +25.1%
- Class 37- construction services: +24.0%
- Class 42- scientific and technological services: +23.4%
Which companies file the most applications?
Domestically, gaming companies remain dominant with Aristocrat Technologies (gaming machines) the largest local filer for the third year in a row. It is followed by Pharmacor (pharmaceuticals) and Ainsworth Game Technology (gaming machines and online games).
Internationally, L’Oréal (cosmetics) is the largest filer. It increases its filings over the last three years which has resulted from it moving from third largest filer to top of the leader board.
Several new applicants were Chinese ecommerce companies such as Weihai Trophy Import & Export (3rd) and Gudao Crossborder Ecommerce Weihai (4th).
Canadian company Dollarama enters the Australian market following its acquisition of The Reject Shop in early 2025. It filed 60 applications as part of a re-brand.
IP and the economy
One of the more interesting aspects of IP Australia’s report is its research into the link between trade mark registration and business performance.
The report finds that after receiving their first trade mark registration, local businesses outperformed comparable businesses that did not register their trade marks in the following ways:
- 78% higher average income; and
- 16% higher labour productivity.
It’s encouraging to see revenue and productivity growth- long advocated by trade mark attorneys - materialising in practice.
You can read the full report here: Australian IP Report 2026
