China is registering more and more patents
So far everybody was convinced that Chinese are better in copying than inventing. That is changing dramatically. China is very concious about having to develop their own products if they want to get away from their cheap image.
The government is inforcing that direction. Producer of simple mass products have to move to the hinterland of the middle kingdom. This also ensures a transfer of knowhow to the “backyard”, and – giving the population there a chance of work – helps to reduce the flow of migrants into the big cities. Along the highly developed coast only enterprises are accepted, which go for a higher value creation. The result of that movement is that Chinese companies get more and more copied in their own country. The only way of preventing this is in registering their innovations through patents.
The German newspaper “Spiegel Online” reported in February 2010, that China has registerd 3910 patents last year and is holding place 8 of the global list now. Number 1 in registering of patents is the US with 50.000 applications, followed by Japan with 27.000 and Germany with 17.000. Then comes South Korea, France, the UK, the Netherlands and China.
August 9th, 2010 at 08:10
And for all those people who think that IP rights are not taken seriously in China, perhaps this court decision where Microsoft won against Dazhong insurers, (who were using pirated microsoft software) will make them feel safer about IP rights in China.