China breaks records for number of patents
In 2018, Chinese inventors received a record number of patents in the United States. In total, representatives of Chinese companies were granted about 12.5 thousand patents, which is more than 10 times higher than a decade ago (1223).
Compared to 2017, the number of patents received by Chinese inventors increased by 12%, while all other countries significantly worsened their performance. For example, the us authorities issued 14.8 thousand patents to representatives of Germany, which is more than 6% less than a year earlier. This is evidenced by the data of the United States patent And Trademark Office (USPTO).
"Continued growth (of indicators. — News.ru) China is very interesting. The country is going to soon overtake Germany-maybe not next year, but next year, " commented Larry Cady, senior analyst at IFI Claims.
Such dynamics of patenting new inventions reflects the intensification of the development of Chinese companies ' own technologies, Bloomberg notes. Overtaking Germany, China will be able to aim for third place in the list of countries whose inventors receive the largest number of patents in the States. At the end of last year, it was held by South Korea (20.2 thousand). In second place in the ranking is Japan (48.3 thousand).
The undisputed leader of the list is the United States. In 2018, American inventors were granted 143 thousand patents. The ten companies that received the greatest number of them include IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Apple, Ford, Samsung Electronics, Canon, LG Electronics and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. At the same time, IBM alone was granted 9.1 thousand patents, which gave it the opportunity to remain the leader among high-tech companies for the 26th year in a row.
Chinese companies in the top 10 yet, but just two companies from China-Huawei Technologies Co. and BOE Technology Group-for the year increased the number of patents received in the US by more than 10%.
Chinese patents are useless
Despite the high performance of China, most of the patents granted to inventors in that country are useless. This conclusion was reached by Bloomberg observers in September 2018. The investigation showed that in pursuit of quantitative indicators in China patent everything.
There are three types of patents in China. The first is the documents for inventions, which are issued after thorough inspections. It accounts for only 23% of the total number of patents granted. The second category is the documents for the so-called utility model (53%). The third type is patenting the design of various products (24%).
An example of a Chinese design patent is the shape of a bottle, and a utility model is a sliding gesture to unlock a smartphone.
After the first five years, only 9% of the patent holders renew their patents for the third type. In the case of utility models, their share is higher-39%, 63% of document holders continue to pay for the first category (inventions).
In most cases, the patents obtained by Chinese representatives are copies of American ones, said Wang Xiang, head of Orrick's China law firm. This state of Affairs can be called the costs of the planned economy of the country. Chinese business began to prove its technological superiority after Chinese President XI Jinping announced the launch of the "Made in China 2025" program aimed at the development of intellectual property.