China Becoming Intellectual Property Powerhouse

eldavojohn writes "A lot of Westerners view China as little more than the world's factory manufacturing anything with little regard to patents, copyrights and trademarks. But it seems as far as patents go, China is moving on up. According to the WIPO, the company that applied for the most patents in 2008 was not an American or Japanese company but China's Huawei Technologies. And China has made astonishing ground recently moving up to third place with 203,257 patent applications behind Japan (500,000) and the United States (390,000). It remains to be seen if these patents applications will come to fruition for China but it is evident that they are focusing on a new image as a leader in research and development. The Korean article concentrates on 2008 but you can find 2009 statistics at the WIPO's report on China along with some statistics breaking down applications by industry."

This ought to be good.

[Penguinisto]

I wonder how long it will be until "intellectual property" lawyers start complaining about their cases being outsourced?

Re:Probably Stolen

[mrsteveman1]

Because these patents come with a side of sticky rice, its totally different.

Obviously

[OzPeter]

Patents are for communists. If you love patents then you love communism and we don't want that kinda love in the ol' capitalistic US of A ..... oh wait

Re:Probably Stolen

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I asked a Chinese graduate student in my lab what intellectual property meant in China. He smiled and yelled out "Nothing!"