All I Want for Christmas Is You peak chart position

Mariah Carey's December chart position climbing as China's patent count keeps climbing all year. A 1994 song staging an annual revival, a state innovation policy producing more filings every quarter. Two engines of the 2010s, both refusing to stop.

All I Want for Christmas Is You finally hit Number One on the Hot 100 in 2019 after streaming-era chart rules let December play resurrect older holiday songs. China's resident patent applications grew from about 400,000 in 2012 to over 1.4 million by 2021, driven by genuine R&D growth and aggressive subsidy schemes. Both lines are products of the platform-and-policy decade: streaming algorithms made an old hit eternal, while incentive structures made patent filings a measurable national project. Different systems, both rewarding the same thing — durable, repeatable output.

Some products were optimised. The chart and the patent office both found what they were measuring.