The technology innovation is a strategic force to improve social productivity and comprehensive national strength, and intellectual property can provide service to the technology innovation through the whole course. In recent years, China has been leading the globe from the patent filings disclosed to the public. Recently, Thomson Reuters Intellectual Property and Technology Group (hereafter referred to as “Thomson Reuters”) released the research report Innovation in China—China’s Patent Activity Trend and Globalization in Innovation (hereafter referred to as “Report”) which indicated China has surpassed Japan and US in patent filings in 2013 and become the largest patent filer all over the world.

Leading the world in patent filings

Statistics show that China surpassed Japan and US in invention patent filing. China has become the largest patent filer all over the world, which is leading the globe. Among the filings, Huawei Technology Co., Ltd., Alibaba Group, Lenovo Group, etc. were topped in terms of their overseas patent filings. According to the statistics from the State Intellectual Property Office, China received 825,000 invention patent applications in 2013, with a year-on-year growth of 26.3%, which accounted for 34.7% of the receipts of all the three types of patents.

The relevant responsible person introduced in an interview by China IP Daily that “we saw that the big increase of China’s innovation is depending more and more on the persistent efforts of the local enterprises. In 2007, the number of patent filings by the Chinese applicant was basically equal to that filed by the foreign applicants in China. However, Chinese applicants accounted for around 80% invention patent filings in 2013. In the past 10 years, China surpassed all the competitors in terms of growth of patent filings. This explained once again that China has kept a continuous growth in patent filing and there is no sign of slowing down.”

Quality of part of the patents needs to be improved

At present, China is in a critical period of reform, development and economic transformation and upgrading, during which the traditional industries are accelerating structure optimization, and the wave of technology innovation is advancing constantly. Intellectual property becomes an important channel for most enterprises to speed up their technology innovation and industry upgrading. However, behind the phenomenon of a large growth of patent filing, it is far from enough to realize the benefit and ＆#118alue of the patent only relying on the number of patent filing. Patent may function as a pillar in innovation-driven-development only when the quality of patent is improved and the transformation of patent to productivity is realized.

The Report indicated that China has equal strength to US and Japan in technology portfolio in mathematical computing and processing, and communication technology. The patents of this filed are mainly hold by enterprises and colleges and universities in China. They are comparable with those in US, Japan, etc. in terms of quantity and quality. However, in the fields of pharmacy, alkaloid, etc., China only has absolute advantage in the quantity of the patent portfolio, but the quality of the patents needed to be improved.

The relevant responsible person introduced that “China accounts for 80% of the patent filings of alkaloid and plant extract, and 60% of pharmaceutical activity. However, in comparison, the applicants of the patents in these fields are mostly colleges and universities and enterprises in US, while in China, most of the applicants are individual inventors.”

Lawsuits are increasing in number

The number of patent lawsuits had grown 2 times from 2006 to 2013. What the growth of patent lawsuits indicated?

The relevant responsible attorney from a law firm analyzed to the reporter for China IP Daily that “on one aspect, the awareness of the populace to intellectual property, particularly patent has been increasing to a certain extent. The number of patent filings by the Chinese enterprises has grown rapidly. On the other aspect, the cost of lawsuit in China is relatively lower than that in countries like US and UK. In addition, Chinese enterprises have accumulated experience and lesson from costly overseas practice, and they have integrated such experience into their own intellectual property strategy, from which they have grasped the measure to serve the enterprises through patent lawsuit.”

Foreign parties involved in the lawsuit may always misunderstand the legal environment in China and consider they would be treated unfairly. However, this is not the case from the analysis of winning rates between the foreign plaintiffs and the Chinese plaintiffs.

The relevant responsible attorney also introduced that “the statistics of the Report show that the winning rates of the foreign plaintiffs and the Chinese plaintiffs in the lawsuits in China are 75% and 63% respectively, which indicated that the outside has been misunderstood about the Chinese legal environment.”

The Report also indicated that the infringement cases in mechanical engineering and other fields took up 2/3 of all the patent cases since 2006. What is worthy of noticing is that the patent lawsuits have been increasing to a certain extent in the two complicated technical fields of chemical and electric engineering in the same period. Meanwhile, the statutory damages have been increased to a certain extent in these two fields, which are higher than that of the other fields. In fact, the average statutory damages in chemical filed was 37% higher than that of the other fields in the judgments made by the courts. The relevant responsible attorney expressed that though the amount of the damages is still relatively low, the overall trend is going up.

Date: November 5, 2014
Source: China State Intellectual Property Office