China Breaks Patent Application Record

China-based inventors applied for a record-setting number of patents last year. The country accounted for more than a million submissions, according to an annual report by the World Intellectual Property Organization (Wipo). It said the figure was "extraordinary". From a BBC report:A total of 2.9 million patent applications were filed worldwide in 2015, according to Wipo, marking a 7.8% rise on the previous year. China can lay claim to driving most of that growth. Its domestic patent office -- the Property Office of the People's Republic of China (Sipo) -- received a record 1,101,864 filings. Many of the filings were for innovations in telecoms, computing, semiconductors and medical tech. Beijing had urged companies to boost the number of such applications. But some experts have cast doubt as to whether it signifies that the country is truly more inventive than others, since most of China's filings were done locally.

Re:

[unixisc]

The good news - we can deal w/ Chinese theft of US IP by counter-theft of our own - depending on whichever patents are valuable

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

People who literally couldn't care less about the intellectual property of others patent their own stuff?

Poor countries benefit from ignoring IP, because they produce little of their own. As they modernize, they produce more and more IP, and benefit from strengthening protections. China is going through that transition.

Over the last decade, corporate profits have shifted from smaller to bigger corporations, and the most profitable companies all have two characteristics in common: 1) The are globalized, and 2) they own a lot of IP. There are few better investments than building up a patent portfolio. Patent

At what price?

[frovingslosh]

What does it cost to go through the patent filing process in China? Is it as onerous as it is in the United States?

The new Patent Trolls

[DickBreath]

China will cripple American business with patent lawsuits. Then what will the people say who thought that patenting side to unlock was such a great idea?

good think trump will kill the TPP so that isds

[Joe_Dragon]

good think trump will kill the TPP so that isds can not be used to enforce them. China may not be part of the TPP but they can use back doors in the isds system.

What we should be asking:

[kuzb]

How many of those patent applications were essentially ideas ripped off from other countries? China has an extremely long history of intellectual theft.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

You realise the US wrote the book in international IP theft? It's really only once we stopped manufacturing ourselves that we experienced a come-to-Jesus moment with patents and began to preach the gospel.

Junk patents

[EEPROMS]

From what I am reading a massive majority of china's patents ore domestic and hardly any of them have been reviewed or tested. There is a massive amount of corruption within the chinese patent system with patent legal offices openly allowing what is now termed as "junk patents" though that have no innovative value (did someone say corruption). It is only when you look at how many "international patents" china registers that you realise that the 1 million number is all smoke and mirrors (pretty much how I vi

The trick is simple

[fubarrr]

>But some experts have cast doubt as to whether it signifies that the country is truly more inventive than others, since most of China's filings were done locally.

Why would they need to? All the shit US is buying is made in China. And they don't even need to bother with underhanded tricks like software patents as Chinese courts simply don't recognize foreign patents except for Russian, Cuban, North Korean, and from *stans since they shared patent system back in commie times. Chinese company has to simply

First to file

[WillAffleckUW]

First to file does not mean first to invent.

You have to remember the Soviets used to do this too.

And the Japanese.

I don't blame the Chinese for doing what they do, if I were them, I'd be doing the same, especially since the NSA taps all their communications, but doesn't share the results with American inventors.