China's Patent licensing will boom

Patent licensing will keep an expedited growth in China as indigenous innovation enhances and the ability of enterprises to use IPR system improves, especially when patent application filings and patent quality increase, said Cao Donggen, deputy general director of patent administration department of China's State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), on December 22.

During the Eleventh Five-Year Plan Period, China received 1.451 million applications for invention patents, 2.6 times that of the Tenth Five-Year Plan, released by Cao in his statement at a symposium on patent licensing services in national indigenous innovation demonstration areas. As many as 12 thousand applications were filed under PCT in 2010, almost four times more than that in 2005.

"China leaped to the second place in invention patents applications in 2010 and secured the fourth place in terms of PCT applications," said Cao. In 2007, there were only 118 patent licensing contracts registered in SIPO, involving 564 patents, but since 2008, the filing has reached 10 thousand annually and has been increasing year by year. [Chinese version is available on eastday.com]