Before the formal release, the ministry had touched on its plans to improve patent-review standards for emerging fields such as big data, artificial intelligence and genetic technologies.

“[We will] expand the scope of review and expedite the process, as well as strengthen the review mechanisms to support critical technology breakthroughs and the high-quality development of key industries,” Wang Peizhang, director general of the Intellectual Property Utilisation Promotion Department at the CNIPA, said at a press conference on March 29.

Patents are considered an important marker of innovation and technological capabilities, but China has also been criticised for heavily subsidising patent applicants, and for putting an emphasis on quantity over quality.

And recently, patents have further come under the spotlight amid Beijing’s push for technological self-reliance against the backdrop of rising international competition, namely with the US, in critically important sectors such as semiconductors. Leadership has also set out to tighten quality supervision and reduce substandard applications.

“Original innovation has consistently been the weakest link in [China’s] self-dependent innovation,” said Xu Guanhua, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who used to serve as the science and technology minister.

China and US battle fiercely on yet another tech front: patent applications

Xu was quoted last month by the Study Times, the mouthpiece of the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party, as saying that fundamental research into cutting-edge technologies leads the way for emerging industries, serving as “an indicator of a country’s strength and a lifeline for future development”.

China ranked as the 12th most innovative out of 132 economies surveyed in Wipo’s 2023 innovation index, trailing countries such as Switzerland, the US, Singapore and South Korea, and was the only middle-income country in the top 30 of the annual assessment.

“China’s innovation quality shows notable disparities, with deficiencies in specific industries being crucial factors behind the gap between China and the US,” according to a research report on China’s patent quality, released by the CICC Global Institute last year.

While fields such as computer science, communication and transport technologies remained bright spots in China’s innovation quality and reached global frontier levels, noticeable deficiencies persisted in pharmaceuticals, chemicals and semiconductors, the report said.

Based on an analysis of patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office compiled in the Wipo database, the report said China’s patents were mostly from the electrical engineering industry, while much fewer came from traditional mechanical and chemical sectors, compared with a relatively more balanced layout seen in countries such as the US, Japan and Germany.

“Although the advancement of key industries may drive a surge in patent quantity, this alone is insufficient to enhance overall patent quality; elevating patent quality requires strengthening the innovation capabilities of industries with deficiencies,” the report said.

It further warned that the rapid increase in Chinese patents “did not fully translate into international competitiveness in technology”, stressing that China’s patent applications to overseas countries accounted for less than 10 per cent of the total filings over the past few years.

“Many [Chinese patent applications] are primarily aimed at corporate promotion, product marketing, and seeking policy support, rather than having the intention or profitability to enter overseas markets. So, applicants do not actively seek substantial patent protection in multiple countries,” the report said.

China surpasses US in quantum patent applications amid ‘neck-to-neck’ race

A patent survey report published by the CNIPA in late 2022 also pointed to a lack of international competitiveness in China’s patents.

Among the surveyed enterprises holding patents, industries related to information transmission, software and IT service had the highest proportion of submissions for patent applications abroad, yet reached only 9.1 per cent, according to CNIPA’s findings.

In a separate statement on Thursday, the CNIPA said that it would work with the US, European Union, Japan and South Korea to improve their Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) network, which aims to shorten the review time of patent applications under the PPH programme to three months.

The PPH enables applicants who have successfully obtained a patent from one office to request expedited processing of a related application at another office, allowing the second office to leverage the work done by the first office, thereby expediting the application process.

Since launching its first PPH trial in November 2011, China has established PPH cooperation with patent examination agencies from 32 countries or regions, according to the CNIPA.