2025 INPI yearbook publication: patenting numbers in Brazil

Take China out of Brazil's 2025 patent statistics and foreign filing activity went into reverse. The INPI's 2025 Statistical Yearbook, released on 27 October 2026, records a 41.2% increase in invention patent applications attributed to China, while applications from every other foreign origin combined fell. The shift coincides with a surge in Chinese productive investment, including two newly opened vehicle plants, and it has consequences for portfolio strategy, licensing and the assessment of local patent risk, both for companies investing in Brazil and for patent owners already operating there.

China alone accounts for the net growth in foreign invention filings

China-origin invention applications rose from 1,998 in 2024 to 2,822 in 2025. Across all origins, invention applications grew by 6.8%, from 25,062 to 26,775. China's growth was roughly six times the overall rate.

Invention applications filed at the INPI by selected origins

Source: INPI 2025 Statistical Yearbook, Figure A24, p. 66. Change compares 2025 with 2024.

China now ranks third overall, behind Brazil and the United States, and second among foreign origins, having widened its lead over Germany and Japan. South Korea posted a higher percentage increase (80.7%), but from a much smaller base, reaching 719 applications. What distinguishes China is the combination of sustained growth and real volume.

The longer view is more telling still. China-origin invention applications rose from 797 in 2016 to 2,822 in 2025, an increase of 254%, and their share of all invention filings from 2.8% to 10.5%. Over the same period, total invention applications at the INPI fell by 4.4%. China is not simply growing with the market; it is changing the composition of demand for Brazilian patent protection.

The 2025 arithmetic is stark. Non-resident invention filings increased by 439, from 19,328 to 19,767. China alone added 824. Without China, filings from the remaining foreign origins fell by 385, or 2.2%. China's increase therefore more than accounts for the entire net growth in foreign invention filings in Brazil.

China more than accounts for the net increase in foreign invention filings. Source: INPI 2025 Statistical Yearbook, Figures A22 and A24 (824 − 385 = 439).

A large pipeline and investment outcome

At company level the Chinese presence is already hard to miss. Two of the four largest foreign applicants at the INPI are Chinese technology groups. (The ranking counts co-applicants, while the country table follows the first applicant, so the two cannot be combined into a precise company share.)

Patent Rights in force (granted) is progressing. The yearbook attributed 3,732 invention patents in force to China, 3.4% of the total and only eighth place. The United States held 33,087 (30.4%), Germany 9,839 and Japan 8,941. China's 10.5% share of new applications is three times its share of the existing stock. It is indeed an inflection point.

The Brazil-China Business Council (CEBC) reports US$6.1 billion of Chinese investment in Brazil in 2025, up 45% on 2024, across a record 52 projects (39 in 2024). Electricity attracted US$1.79 billion, mining US$1.76 billion and the automotive sector US$965 million, the last up 66%. The patent expansion is therefore taking place alongside a rise in productive investment, and the sector figures point to where commercial exposure is growing.

CEBC's series estimates project activity rather than audited cash disbursed, and the Central Bank of Brazil's Direct Investment Report offers an official cross-check. Classified by ultimate controlling investor, China's inward direct investment equity position stood at US$40.3 billion at the end of 2024, against only US$3.2 billion by immediate investor, a measure of how much Chinese capital reaches Brazil through intermediate jurisdictions. The two series describe different things, a stock at end-2024 and project activity during 2025, but both confirm an established and growing Chinese equity presence.

For Chinese investors, the scale of the commercial commitment strengthens the case for addressing Brazilian patent protection early rather than as an afterthought to a global filing programme. Filing decisions should track the technology actually deployed in the local operation and the activities of likely competitors.