Real shield needed as AI industry continues to boom
Better safeguarding of intellectual property urged in competitive market
China has fulfilled its commitments on intellectual property rights protection, according to a white paper titled “China and the World Trade Organization” released by the State Council Information Office last week.
Strengthening IPR protection is the centerpiece for improving the protection system as a whole, and will provide a great boost to the competitiveness of the Chinese economy. It will not
Experts have called for better protection of intellectual property rights in the artificial intelligence industry, as it becomes increasingly crowded and competitive as a result of explosive growth.
From the perspective of technology, IP in the AI industry is comprised of three tiers, Liu Hanlun, general manager of an AI patent industry innovation center in Beijing, told Science and Technology Daily recently.
The first tier relates to fundamental technologies, such as chips, algorithms and remote sensing. The second tier covers integration of such fundamental technologies, including image recognition. The third tier is concerned with application to specific scenarios, such as automated driving and medical image recognition, Liu said.
AI companies can take various approaches to their IP protection, including patents, copyrights, industrial designs and trademarks, he said.
Lionel Lavenue, a partner at Finnega, a global IP law firm, said in an recent lecture at the China Intellectual Property Training Center in Beijing, that tech companies in the AI sector tend to pay attention to patents yet undervalue industrial designs, the newspaper reported.
Liu noted that another form of protection not commonly used in China is that of trade secrets.
A trade secret is a formula, practice, process, design, instrument, pattern or commercial method not generally known or reasonably ascertainable by others by which a business can obtain an economic advantage.
Trade secrets also require a set of regulations and practices to protect technologies and business information that are crucial to a company, according to Liu.
Another partner at Finnega, E. Robert Yoches, told Science and Technology Daily that in the United States, it is quite common for AI companies to shield their IP as trade secrets from infringements.
He said he found many tech businesses in China have yet to take advantage of the use of trade secrets and take such actions as signing confidentiality agreements with their research and development staff.
Otherwise they would face huge losses due to the disclosure of technological know-how or trade secrets, he added.
China is the largest AI patent filer in the world, with more than 99,260 applications in the sector, according to a report on innovation in the AI industry, released in May by PatSnap, a patent research and management company founded in Singapore.
The US took second place with 48,870 filings, followed by Japan with 31,160 applications.
Judging from patent filings, the future rivalry for the sector will be mainly between China and the US, Liu predicted.
As a forerunner in the AI business, the US has developed more core patented technologies. By comparison, China focuses more on application, which would leave the domestic sector at risk of unsustainable growth, Liu said.
Another concern for innovation in the Chinese AI industry is that more than 90 percent of patent filings were made in China, he noted. “That means when going abroad in the future, Chinamade AI products will be exposed and vulnerable to IP infringements.”
He cited an international group’s survey of the top 24 AI chip companies worldwide as an example. Of these, seven were from China and they together own 55,000 patents, with Huawei headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong province and MediaTek in Taiwan at the forefront.
The other 17 foreign companies have a combined 400,000 patents, far more than the Chinese inventory. The difference shows Chinese companies still have a long way to go in their R&D expansion, Liu said.
The Chinese AI industry has undergone explosive growth since 2015, with the number of companies involved in the sector totaling 4,040 as of May this year, Science and Technology Daily reported on Monday.
Beijing has 1,070 AI companies, accounting for 26 percent of the national total, according to a report on the Beijing AI industry’s development, released by the Beijing Commission of Economy and Information Technology at the 22nd China International Software Expo on Saturday.
The report said most AI companies in Beijing are in the fields of healthcare, household appliances, urban management, retail and selfdriving.
The Beijing companies have developed more than 25,000 patents, the report found.
There are 1,237 AI companies nationwide that have already acquired venture capital investment. Of these, 431 are based in Beijing, accounting for 35 percent, according to the report.
Some 56.9 percent of the AI companies in Beijing have not completed A-round financing, indicating that most are still in the startup stage with potential for further development.
A number of AI products and companies have emerged in Beijing in recent years, making the city an AI innovation hub in China, said You Jing, deputy director of the commission’s software office.
“Beijing has formed an AI industrial cluster, thanks to the favorable policies, an innovation and entrepreneurial atmosphere, capital, enhanced software development and patent protection it has benefited from.”