Recent China’s Patent Activity and Innovation Capacity

Abstract

Recently, patent applications of Chinese innovative entities have been increasing and approved patents have been increasing, so attention has been focused. It shows that China's innovators rapidly increasing their capacity. This study describes the increase in patent activity and investigates the background of increased patent activity in China. The results can be summarized as follows. Firstly, China has evolved into a system in which local governments lead innovation activities with strong motivations and patent activities are increasing around local governments. Secondly, as China has pushed forward indigenous innovation policy and has an innovation system friendly to domestic firms, the patent activity of Chinese firms has far exceeded that of foreign-invested firms in China.