The report indicates that China's State Intellectual Property Office overtook the United States to become the largest filer in terms of the number of patent applications.
Francis Gurry, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization, attributes it to the Chinese government paying more attention to protecting innovation and intellectual property rights.
"So that's quite a significant development, really. We would expect China to continue maintaining its position as the largest patent filing office."
Zhang Jian, who examines patent filings at the State Intellectual Property Office, agrees. But he adds that many of the filings fail to demonstrate practical performance.
The World Intellectual Property Organization report says utility model applications and industrial design filings in China accounted for most of the global increase.
"Most people would like to apply for utility models and industrial designs, while few people apply for patents for inventions because of the higher requirements. Moreover, many of the approved utility models don't have realistic market demand. Therefore, only a small number of utility models eventually see real volume production."
Besides this, Tang Xiyou, a lawyer who specializes in patents at Yingke Law Firm in Guangzhou, points out that some local authorities have included patent applications as part of their performance appraisal system. This has prompted them to continue pursuing a high number of patent applications, while neglecting their quality.
However, Li Yuxiang, an intellectual property law professor at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, says the problem is not so serious.
"We need to improve it based on the aim of intellectual property law. The aim is to enhance China's capacity for independent innovation and promote economic development, so anything contradictory to it, such as the low quality of patent applications, needs to be improved."
In this manner, Li believes China can really merge into the international system for innovation and intellectual property protection.
For CRI, I'm Su Yi.
