The Progressive Policy Institute says:

Asian science and engineering is rising fast. Here the telling figures come from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which (unlike WIPO's report) distinguish between mainland China and Taiwan and allow analysts to go back in time by covering U.S. and foreign patent applications since 1965.

In 1980, for example, Koreans filed only 33 patent applications and Taiwanese 367; by 2000 the respective totals were 5,705 and 9,046. In 2006, Korean patent applications totaled nearly 22,000 -- just a shade below the German total and above any other European country -- and Taiwan was above 19,000. Japan, Korea and Taiwan now account for well over half of all foreign patent applications. The recent data seem to presage an even larger Asian surge, as India and China become science and technology powers: the two giants together accounted for 180 patent applications in 1990; 900 in 2000; and nearly 6,000 as of 2006.

Altogether, Asia is now the source of a third of the PTO's patent applications.

Source:

http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?contentID=254643&knlgAreaID=108&subsecID=127&FREM=Y&sid=1&mid=27121