China's Shifting Patent Landscape and State-Led Patenting Strategy

Abstract

The extent to which China is an innovative economy is the topic of ongoing contention in scholarly and practitioner circles. The intellectual property component of China’s technological catch-up strategy has been geared towards first focusing on quantity of outputs and then eventually shifting towards ensuring the quality of outputs. Disconcertingly, in recent years this strategy has created negative impacts on patent quality and thus somewhat may have hampered innovation in China.New Chinese intellectual property policies, and the 2014 phenomena of decreasing annual growth rates of domestic invention patent filings and unprecedented negative growth rates of domestic utility model and design filings, shed new light on this debate. They suggest that recent shifts away from the government strategy of stimulating mere numbers of any type of patent application may be having a tangible impact. Even though science & technology development in China will inevitably continue to be a numbers game of sorts, these recent trends may reflect a step towards a healthier Chinese innovation trajectory. Scholars, policymakers, and businesses should consider these shifting dynamics in their intellectual property and innovation forecasting, strategizing, and planning.