Chinese academic players lead in AI patent filing: WIPO report

Chinese academic institutions and companies are leading players in global artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, according to a recent report from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Chinese institutions make up 17 of the world’s top 20 academic players in AI patenting and 10 of the top 20 in AIrelated scientific publications, showed the report, which was released on Thursday.

The report noted that AI patents filed by Chinese organizations grew 20 percent annually on average between 2013 and 2016.

“Chinese organizations are particularly strong in the emerging technique of deep learning,” the report said.

Among the Chinese institutions, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) was a leading player, with more than 2,500 patent families and more than 20,000 scientific papers published on AI, it showed, adding that CAS has the largest deep learning portfolio with 235 patent families.

However, US and Japanese companies led in AI patent filings. Of the top 20 companies filing AI-related patents, 12 are based in Japan, three are from the US and two are from China.

US-based IBM has the largest portfolio of AI patent filings with 8,290 inventions, followed by Microsoft with 5,930 inventions, according to the report.

State Grid Corp of China rose into the top 20 after its patent filings increased by an average of 70 percent annually from 2013 to 2016.