CHINA’S leaders see patents as rungs on the ladder to becoming an innovation powerhouse. So in five-year plans and through subsidies and official exhortations, they have encouraged locals to file patents. And locals have responded with gusto. Two years ago China’s patent office became the world’s busiest. Sceptics have scoffed that most of those filed are “utility model” patents—short-term ones granted for relatively trivial ideas, as opposed to proper “invention” patents—and that few Chinese inventors have won patents in countries where standards are higher.
Business | Chinese patents
Ever more inventive
Mainland companies are building up their intellectual property
|SHANGHAI
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline "Ever more inventive"
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