Invention patents increase fast
Redoubled efforts needed to develop pinnacle tech: official
By the end of June, China has had 1.475 million invention patents, which means for every 10,000 people in China, there are 10.6 invention patents on average, said China’s intellectual property authorities.
At a press conference of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) on Tuesday, authorities said China is also making greater effort to protecting intellectual property rights.
In the first half of 2018, the number of cases related to invention patents has increased by 29.5 percent compared to the same period last year. By the end of June, 13,600 cases about trademark violations have been handled, and the total value involved in these cases reached 210 million yuan ($31 million), according to SIPO.
“In the past, when China’s industrial development partly relied on technology supplied by the outside world, the motivation for innovation was not as strong as that at present. Due to the trade war with the US, China’s intention to strengthen its innovation capability will be even stronger than the past,” Bai Ming, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
China still needs to redouble its efforts to develop pinnacle technologies such as optics, engine turbines and medical equipment, Bi Nan, director general of the Planning and Development Department of the SIPO, said at the Tuesday conference. “We are still at a disadvantage in core technologies,” Bi said.
During the first half of this year, the SIPO received 23,000 patent applications based on the Patent Cooperation Treaty, with 21,600 of them coming from domestic industries, signaling a rise of 7.6 percent year on year.
Among the 35 sectors classified by the World Intellectual Property Organization, patents granted to domestic inventions outnumbered those to foreign ones in 32 categories.
Trade conflicts with the US, especially the ZTE case, have taught a cruel lesson to China, which is that the country cannot count on the outside world in the key areas regarding national security, said Zhao Zhanling, a legal counsel of the Beijing-based Internet Society of China.
“In the short term, the US’ trade war against China might bring some difficulties and challenges, but in the long term, it will force China to increase investment and make much more efforts to reduce its reliability on core technologies introduced from the outside world,” Zhao noted.
At the same time, Bi pointed out that Chinese entities were not as competent as their foreign counterparts in view of receiving long-term patents whose validity could extend for more than 10 years. The comparison was especially obvious in 28 of the 35 sectors, including transport facilities and computer science, she said.
“We should endeavor to improve the quality of patents, keep mapping out critical inventions in key areas and continue to reinforce the protection and utility of patents in important sectors,” she added.