China to Further Encourage Self-Innovation despite Astonishing Patent Achievement

China's state intellectual property watchdog says the country has made astonishing achievements in self-innovation as the number of international patent applications is on the rise.

But it also warns there's still a long way to go for the country to become a powerhouse of original ideas and technologies.

Wu Jia takes a closer look.

Gong Yalin is Director of the Planning and Development Bureau of the State Intellectual Property Office.

In an exclusive interview with CRI, he said there has been a steady increase in the number of patent applications filed in China in recent years.

"Take last year for example. We received more than 390,000 patent applications, up 24 percent from the previous year. Among them, the number of domestic patent applications reached about 290,000, a year-on-year increase of 28 percent."

On the international level, China has just become the fourth-largest country in terms of patent applications. The UN World Intellectual Property Organization says China filed more than 12,000 patents under the Patent Cooperation Treaty system last year. The number surged by 56 percent from 2009.

The United States ranked first in the patent filings, followed by Japan and Germany.

Gong Yalin says these figures show that China has made astonishing advancements in its move to spur self-innovation. But he stresses that the country still faces many challenges.

"There are few made-in-China goods that contain independent high-tech intellectual property rights. Moreover, patent applications filed under the PCT system by the U.S. and Japan cover a wide range of sectors like electronics, the auto industry, machinery manufacturing, and the chemical industry. But China's PCT patents only focus on telecommunications and the internet."

Geng Xiaoqiang, a manager of a Beijing-based private technology company, urges more governmental support for private enterprises to conduct research. His company, Beijing Grand Golden-Bright Engineering and Technologies Company Limited, has applied for 180 patents both at home and abroad.

"Private enterprises are in a disadvantaged position compared with state-owned companies in terms of policy support and bank lending. We hope that the government will create a fair environment for private enterprises to conduct self-innovation."

Gong Yalin, from the State Intellectual Property Office, promises that the government will do all that's necessary to further advance self-innovation.

"Research and development should mainly depend on market entities. As for the government, it should create a favorable environment by giving adequate support, strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights, and raising the public's awareness of intellectual property protection."

Gong Yalin says the government will nurture more potential innovative enterprises and step up the use of existent patents to build a self-innovative country.

For CRI, I'm Wu Jia.