China Shows its Power in Patent Applications with Over 1m Filings in a Single Year

View: 1806     Date: 2016-12-30 07:04

It is almost the end of 2016. As we look back over the years, large growth has been made in the area of intellectual property for China. According to the recent news from the WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization), China becomes the first country accomplishing over one million patent application filings in a single year, which surpasses the global IP giants such as US and European countries. Additionally, over the past five years, China’s patent office received more than four million patent applications for invention and granted over one million of invention patents, up 150% on the “11th five years” (referred to the series of five-year plans). With an increase of 18.7% in patent applications filed in 2015, China shows its increasing power in the global innovation development.

It is noteworthy that Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corporation, as the representatives of business innovators of China, entered into the top 10 applicants list in terms of the global patent numbers, according to the WIPO’s lately released World Intellectual Property Indicators 2016. The top three technology fields for China’s patent applications are measurement, computer technology, and electrical machinery, apparatus and energy.

The economic development is inseparable from the national awareness of innovation. Chinese enterprises have realized that further growth requires far more than the low cost and traditional energy resource consumption. The sustainable growth has to be established on the basis of innovation. Besides, Chinese government has done a lot to encourage innovation all over the country. Under such motivational environment, the pioneer business innovators like Huawei and ZTE stand out as we see today.

China has come to its first year of the “13th five-year plan” under the continuing transformation of economy, thus Chinese enterprises see the development under various challenges as common status. The large quantity and high growth rate of the patent application filings right reflects the fact that Chinese enterprises have developed the common sense of building and protecting their intellectual properties as powerful arms for competition. At the same time, however, the quantity does not equal the quality. There is still a long way to go to catch up with the IP-developed countries, especially in the area of hi-tech innovation development. Overall, only partial sectors have made some breakthrough in the innovation development, which is not able to support the overall improvement of the innovation quality in China.

Therefore from the long way, the improvement of the patent quality is far more important than the seemingly amazing patent numbers. The last mile to the further development is the transformation from large quantity to excellent quality. On one hand, the government should continue its role play in the guidance from policy making and supporting. On the other hand, financial innovation is also an efficient tool in the commercialization of research findings. Furthermore, the internet has been the best bridge for the connection of innovation demand and supply.

(International Affairs Dept. of Leader IP)