Enforcing IP Rights in China: It's Not as Hard as You Think

Peter Zura's 271 Patent Blog posted recently about a report from Joff Wild, editor of Intellectual Asset Magazine, author of the IAM Blog, and contributor to Thomson's Knowledge Newsletter. Joff's report is entitled "Patent Focus Report for 2008," and it looks at the patent activity for China, Europe, Japan, India and the U.S., and provides some interesting findings. Of particular interest to this blog are the numbers for China. Washington State is one of China's largest and fastest growing trading partners. In 2004, total trade between Washington state and China was in excess of $20 Billion (couldn't find more recent numbers, so if you know them, please post them in the comments). Businesses in Washington State will be pleased to read the findings from Joff's report concerning IP enforcement in China. Who would have thought that a patent infringement plaintiff has a better chance at winning a case in Shanghai than Marshall, Texas!

From the Report's section on China:

"During 2007, SIPO received 694,153 patent applications covering three types of patent: invention, utility and design. This number may at first sight seem huge, but it does not tell the full story. The overwhelming number of applications — almost 450,000 — was for utility and design patents, which are not subject to substantive examination. Only invention patents receive full scrutiny and there were 245,161 of these submitted during 2007.
What is interesting to note, however, is the increasing proportion of invention patent applications coming from within China. In 2006, they represented just over 58 per cent of the total number of applications to SIPO, in 2007 this increased to almost 63 per cent. This increase was despite an increasing number of applications from abroad: 92,107 compared to 88,172 in 2006.[A] study of reported decisions in IP cases during 2007 suggested that if rights owners appear before the Chinese courts they have a 75 per cent chance of having the eventual decision go in their favour. This is the case whether the plaintiff is Chinese or from abroad. During 2006, there were more patent cases filed in China than in any other country, and while 98 per cent of these involved only Chinese companies, in the two per cent featuring a plaintiff from outside the country, the foreign entity ended up victorious 90 per cent of the time."