By 2020, Chinese businesses will file more foreign applications for trademarks than businesses in the United States or any other country in the world, according to a study released by CompuMark on Thursday.

Rob Davey, senior director at CompuMark, a research and brand protection firm, said that this should not come as a total surprise. He said that in 2014, Chinese applications for trademarks began skyrocketing in other countries.

“It's not completely out of the blue,” said Davey. “It's a trend we've been seeing since 2014.”

Since that year, Chinese businesses have filed 800 percent more applications for foreign trademarks, according to the survey. Davey said that is an indication that China's economy is “better off and its expanding globally.” The rise in foreign applications, Davey said, is connected with China's government encouraging domestic businesses to expand outside of the country.

In 2017, Chinese businesses filed 120,000 trademark applications worldwide with 50,000 of them submitted in the United States. Chinese companies have submitted more applications in the United States than anywhere else, Davey said.

The study also showed that Chinese companies tend to be more successful in applying for trademarks in foreign countries than businesses from other countries are. Davey said there is no clear answer as to why Chinese companies have a higher success rate of getting their trademark applications accepted, but it could have to do with the names these companies are attempting to trademark.

“I think it's difficult to say. An assumption we have is that some of the marks are not as clear to an English ear as maybe local people would register,” Davey said.

Davey brought up the example of Chinese cellphone maker Huawei. He said because “Huawei” is not an English word, it is unlikely to conflict with other registered marks in English-speaking countries. Davey said, however, that this is only a theory and he and others at CompuMark are still investigating other reasons Chinese companies have a high success rate when getting foreign trademark applications accepted.

The applications Chinese businesses are filing are overwhelmingly for goods rather than services, by a margin of 84 percent to 16 percent. The top three industries in China that are applying for foreign trademarks are research and technology, clothing and household equipment.

In 2016 the top five Chinese companies that filed foreign trademark applications were: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. (1,878), Le Shi Holdings (741), China Tobacco (366), Beijing Xiaoju Technology (311) and Geely Holding Group Ltd. (267).

From a consumer standpoint, the rise in foreign applications from Chinese businesses means foreigners can expect to see more products from these companies on the shelves in the future.

“We can use this trademark data to see that brands are trying to launch,” Davey said.

This story has been updated to correct the number of trademark applications filed worldwide by Chinese businesses.