On April 29, 2021 International patent applications continued to grow even as the world plunged deep into the pandemic. Patent filings at the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) actually reached “the highest number ever” at 275,900 applications in 2020, an increase of 4% over the previous year. Even more remarkable given the estimated 3.5% contraction in global GDP. Leading filers, the US and China, also showed a growth in patent applications as reported by the WIPO in March 2021. According to SeproTec’s Juan Julián León, since China has steadily risen up the ranks of the world’s top patent filers, taking over the No. 2 spot from Japan after 2016, “we have seen more organizations taking control of their patent translations not only in China, but globally, by centralizing their translation needs.”