China Becomes World Patent Leader
China has passed the US and Japan to take the top spot in the world ranking of patent filers. A report from Reuters cites data from 2010 indicating that China filed 314,000 patents. No specific number is given for 2011,…
China has passed the US and Japan to take the top spot in the world ranking of patent filers. A report from Reuters cites data from 2010 indicating that China filed 314,000 patents. No specific number is given for 2011, but Thomson Reuters study expects China to file 500,000 patent applications in 2015, compared with 400,000 filings from the US and 300,000 from Japan.
China offers financial incentives to patent filers, which has certainly helped boost the number of filings. But the return on the patents still trails the US and Japan.
About 73% of Chinese patent filings in 2010 were domestic, but international filings are increasing. In 2010, Chinese phone maker ZTE had the second-highest patent filing total in the world, trailing only Japan’s Panasonic Corp.
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Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.
He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.