The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on March 19 said China's telecom giants Huawei and ZTE listed as among the top three international patent applicants in 2014 as the country saw a double-digit increase in patent filings. Under WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), Huawei, with 3,442 published applications, overtook Panasonic of Japan as the largest applicant in 2014. U.S.-based Qualcomm was the second largest applicant in 2014, with 2,409 published applications, while China's ZTE took third place with 2,179 PCT applications. Among the top 50 applicants, Huawei saw the largest increases in patent filings (1,332), followed by Tencent (727) and Microsoft (652). Applicants from China filed 25,539 applications, an 18.7 percent annual increase.