China claims more patents than any country but most are worthless
China overtook Japan eight years ago to become the biggest hoarder of domestic patents and has remained in the lead ever since, approving 1.8 million last year alone
For nearly a decade, China has taken great pride at filing the largest number of domestic patents. It’s proving less keen on keeping them.
Despite huge numbers of filings, most patents are discarded by their fifth year as licensees balk at paying escalating fees. When it comes to design, more than nine out of every 10 lapses – almost the mirror opposite of the US.
The high attrition rate is a symptom of the way China has pushed universities, companies and backyard inventors to transform the country into a self-sufficient powerhouse. Subsidies and other incentives are geared toward making patent filings, rather than making sure those claims are useful. So the volume doesn’t translate into quality, with the country still dependent on others for innovative ideas, such as modern smartphones.
“It means these patents really aren’t as valuable as people thought,” said Lu Junfeng, a patent attorney at Shanghai-based JZMC Patent and Trademark Law Office. “If the retention rate is so low for design patents, then it calls into question whether there’s a bigger systematic problem.”
China overtook Japan eight years ago to become the biggest hoarder of domestic patents and has remained in the lead ever since, approving 1.8 million last year alone. President Xi Jinping’s Made in China 2025 program – now at the center of tensions with the US – aims to make the country a global leader in technology, and developing a hoard of intellectual property has become a central element of achieving that.
To get a clearer picture on the country’s patent history, it’s important to understand that not all of them are equal. In China there are three different categories: invention, utility model and design.
