Patent applications in China maintained continuous growth during the period of the 11th Five-Year Plan

According to information from the Ministry of Science and Technology, during the period of the 11th Five-Year Plan, China’s patent applications maintained constant growth and continuously hit historic high records, which proved that China’s innovation capability was enhanced and intellectual property became an important factor in economic and social development.

During the period of the 11th Five-Year Plan, the annual average growth of patent applications and grants for inventions was 24.4% and 33.5% respectively. In 2009, domestic patent grants for inventions exceeded foreign patent grants for the first time, accounting for 59.3% of the total amount.

Enterprises contributed a lot to the creation of intellectual property. The annual average growth of patent applications for inventions from enterprises reached 28.7%. The capability of independent innovations and technologies of domestic-funded enterprises was greatly enhanced. From 2007 to 2010, among enterprises, six out of ten biggest applicants of patent for inventions in China were domestically funded.

Meanwhile, invention patents of national technology programs showed an increasing trend. Take 2009 for example, a batch of national programs generated 36197 patent applications, in which, 24778 were for inventions and 7316 were granted. Patents coming from these programs were mainly in the fields of information, new materials and biological medicines.

However, the quality of China’s patents for inventions still dropped behind compared with developed countries and the quantity of  effective patents for inventions was lower than that of foreign countries. According to statistics, China’s effective invention patents increased from 73 thousand in 2006 to 180 thousand in 2009, however, foreign effective invention patents applied in China grew from 145 thousand to 250 thousand in the same period.

Officials from the Ministry of Science and Technology noted that China had a large number of patents; meanwhile, it should pay more attention to patents involving high technology and international competitiveness.