Across The Border | Chinese innovation is on the rise, but is it a case of quantity over quality?
China filed 1 million patent applications in 2015, the first country to do so, and is well on track to smash that record this year
China is producing a record number of patents in a deliberate push toward innovation, but experts warn it may be focusing on quantity over quality.
The country filed almost 940,000 patent applications in the first nine months of the year, putting it well on track to surpass last year’s record-breaking 1 million applications, according to data from the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO).
In 2015, China’s total patent filings almost matched that of the US, South Korea and Japan combined, a recent report from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) revealed.
“The figures for China are quite extraordinary,” WIPO director general Francis Gurry said at a press conference last week. “It is growing, continues to grow at an extraordinary rate.”
The number one difficulty is learning how to innovate effectively
But while innovation in China appears to be growing at a faster rate than countries such as the US, it still faces many challenges, according to Georges Haour, a professor and author of Created in China: How China is Becoming a Global Innovator.