In recent years, the open Chinese market has become a target of competition among companies from all over the world. It can be observed clearly from the patent filings in China by foreign companies.
The latest statistics show that Japanese companies ranked No.1 in patent filings in China, totaling 287,000 in the previous 9 months, up 11.8% over the same period of last year. And the annual growth rate is over 10% in recent years and it takes up 1/3 of total numbers of patent filings in China by foreign companies. The related experts considered that in one aspect it shows the environment of protection of intellectual properties in China is being recognized by international community, and in another aspect, the domestic companies should strengthen their capability of independent innovation and engage enthusiastically in market competition.
Environment of protection in China is recognized for the first time
“Since Chinese government attaches great importance to protection of intellectual property, especially the special action against infringement of intellectual property and manufacturing and sales of counterfeits carried out from last year, it severely attacked infringement, helped companies a lot in their protection work, protected the owners’ legitimate rights and improved remarkably the market condition.”, expressed by the responsible person of IP department of Toyota (China) in the interview by the reporter of China Intellectual Property News.
In recent years, with the development of intellectual property legal system in China, the environment of protection of intellectual properties has been improved continuously and the patent filings in China by foreign companies are increasing steadily. The statistics show that the Japanese company Sony Corporation filed 2,036 invention patent applications in 2010 ranking No.1 in patent filings by foreign-invested companies, up 30% over the last year. Panasonic Corporation is on the second position by 1,700 invention patent applications. In the respect of grant of invention patent in China, Panasonic’s 1,565 made it No.1 while Sony was listed No.3 by 1,313 grants. In 2010, the number of patent filings in China by the Japanese company Hitachi Corporation is 1,700 and its sales in China totaled 1.18 trillion in Japanese Yen. Up to now, the research centers of Hitachi in Beijing and Shanghai have researchers over 100 in total. In 2010, the number of patent filings in China by the Japanese company Honda is 361. Along with development and sales of new car models, it is expected that the number of patent filings would increase. The Japanese company Fujitsu expected that their patent filings would reach 500 in 2011, up by 40% over 2010.
“Based on the improved environment of protection of intellectual property in China, patent portfolio by means of occupying market is a choice made by Japanese companies out of market competition.” An industry expert indicated that there are tremendous potentials in Chinese market and meanwhile the transfer of traditional industries will inevitably bring flow of intellectual properties.
Competition turned into innovative force
In foreign companies, in addition to patent filings, Japanese companies have the largest number of valid patents. The valid patents owned by Japanese companies totaled 90,187 in recent 10 years, among which Panasonic ranks No.1 with 7,616 patents, with obvious advantage, and Sony listed No.3 with 4,098 patents.
According to the statistics made by the State Intellectual Property Office, China received 39,100 invention patent applications in 2010, up 24.1% over last year. The statistics show that invention patent applications maintained rapid growth in 2010. The number of domestic invention patent filings rose 27.9% over last year, 10% higher than the growth rate of last year. The ratio is increased to 74.9% of the total number of invention patent filings, around three times the invention patent filings by foreign companies.
In 2010, in the domestic invention patent filings, the filings made by enterprises accounts for over half of the total, reaching 52.9%, which clearly indicates that the status of enterprises, as the main parties for intellectual property innovation, is strengthened further. And some patent “pioneers” emerged, such as Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. and ZTE Corporation. Huawei, from a small private enterprise, grew into one of the most outstanding companies in the industry and stays ahead in the field of wireless communication standard of next generation. In 2010, ZTE Corporation ranked second for international patent filings through PCT in the world, providing an appealing “Created-by-China” image to the overseas market. More and more enterprises are heading for wider market by the bridge of patents.