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Burgeoning business and growing innovation lead to patent surge

By Wang Xin (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-03 07:48

Burgeoning business and growing innovation lead to patent surge

The number of patents filed in China last year rose 17.9 percent to nearly 980,000 applications, a reflection of "significant progress in the country's capacity for innovation", Liao Tao, director-general of the General Office of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) said at a recent press conference.

Domestic applications rose by 22.4 percent year-on-year, slightly higher than the growth rate of 22.3 percent in 2008, and accounted for 89.9 percent of the total.

Domestic companies filed by far the largest proportion of applications, more than 81 percent of all patent requests submitted.

Since the central government initiated a national intellectual property strategy, helping companies develop core technologies and sharpen their edge in innovation have been top priorities of authorities at various levels, according to SIPO.

Rising awareness in Chinese businesses about the importance of intellectual property protection has brought a surge in patent applications, the office said.

In the face of the avalanche in applications, authorities increased staff and overhauled methods to enhance efficiency.

It now takes less than 26 months to receive an invention patent, an even shorter time than in the United States and Japan - the two top nations of patent owners, said Feng Xiaobing, an official in charge of SIPO's handling patent application operations.

Utility model patents required 5.8 months while the time needed to secure design patents fell four months to 5.5 months. More than 580,000 patents were processed in 2009, an increase of 41.2 percent over the previous year.

In sharp contrast with the strong growth in domestic patents, applications from abroad - more than 94 percent of which come from companies - dropped 10.9 percent in 2009 compared with the previous year.

SIPO cited worldwide economic weakness as a major reason for the decline. Affected by the global economic turmoil, many companies reduced investment in research and development. As a result, patent applications dropped substantially, especially in some traditional industrial sectors like machinery.

Amid the overall decline in overseas applications, the number of patent filings from abroad continues to grow in green technology industries, Feng said.

Liao noted that domestic applications for invention patents - which have the most stringent requirements for novelty, creation and practical use - now account for more than 70 percent of the total for inventions in China.

Applications for invention patents from within China first equaled those from outside the country in 2004. Domestic applications have since risen at an annual rate of 5 percent. More than a quarter of total domestic applications were invention patents.

Guangdong, Jiangsu and Beijing ranked as the top three Chinese mainland provincial-level economies in numbers of invention patent applications.

As a signatory of the Patent Cooperation Treaty, China received 8,000 international patent applications last year, double the figure of 2006, ranking the country fifth globally behind the US, Japan, Germany and South Korea. The figures show that a growing number of Chinese companies are now eyeing overseas markets and recognize the importance of intellectual property protection, according to SIPO.