This is a kind of breaking news and show how the world trends are changing regarding intellectual property. China residents have registered more than 560,000 patents in 2012, a dramatic icrease of 24% over one year.
It means that from now on (if the trend keeps going, and it seems there is no reason so far to have it changed) the China is the most important patent registerer worldwide. According to the WIPO data, from Geneva, the number of patent deposit have been exactly 560,681, which represents one fifth of the world total registrations (which is 2,35 million).
This reflects the tremendous efforts that have been made by Chinese authorities to promote research. This reflects another trend related to the world economical activity, there was a drop in the number of patents in 2009 because of the crisis. In 2012, the number of patents is rising again with an increase of 9,2%.
If one looks at the areas where the most Chinese patents have been registered, most of them are inside metallurgy, like Russia while in other countries such as the United States and Israel the specility is IT and medical technology. In Europe, many countries seems now specialized in transportation patents.
Out of the 2,35 patents deposited in 2012, around one half is validated by the authorities. It means that over one million patents have been registered in 2012.
The United States are now the second country, very close to China. The two powers alone represent one half of the patents registered in the world.
This reflects as well a new juridic environment in China, with companies that are eager to protect their intellectual property with an increase in the number of disputes between companies. The legislation is up to date and the companies want now to use it, it shows globalization and maturity of the Chinese economy which is more and more looking like the economy of an advanced country.
Another concern for Chinese patents is the quality of the patents themselves. A part of the pateted research is of low level, but this is a pheomenon that tends to be more and more marginal. Another problem is the theft of intelectual property, there is a lot of «hacking» of the US and European Intelectual property. These remarks are important but cannot undermine the strength of the Chinese IP trend. China is actually becoming one of the major world actors in creativity, it shows that Chinese economy is not limited to real estate, far from it; there is other type of new heights.
