China surpassed the U.S. as the top source of international patent applications in 2019
 |
| Addicted04 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) |
The most striking slide of Francis Gurry's Briefing for Member States and Other Stakeholders of the World Intellectual Property Organization which he presented on 7 April 2020 is #16, China surpassed the U.S. as the top source of international
patent applications in 2019. Last year China made 58,890 international patent applications compared to 57,849 from the USA and 52,660 from Japan. According to the same slide, the USA made more patent applications than any other country in 2009. China lay a long way behind the USA, Japan and Germany with roughly the same number of applications as South Korea and France. The UK came in #7 with 5,786 international patent applications in 2019 if anyone is interested. That is less than 10% of the Chinese figure.
This should not come as a surprise to anyone. I was at a domain name dispute resolution panellists' meeting at the WIPO in 2005 which was addressed by Dr Gurry before he became Director-General. He forecast that by the end of the decade - that is to say before 2010 - most of the world's new technical literature would be in a North Asian language, He was quite right as slide #5 shows. The USA.Japan.South Korea and Europe have seen steady increases in the number of patent applications over the years but China's rise has been vertical. Interestingly, the company that has applied for more patents than any other is Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. That is the company that the US government and several Conservative backbenchers want to exclude from the supply of equipment for the UK's 5th generation mobile communications network.
Since the Coronavirus pandemic, there has been a rising chorus of Sinophobic sentiment in the UK with a range of largely unchallenged accusations from the alleged appropriation of intellectual property by the country that applies for more patents than any other (1.5 million in 2018) from one that applies for a fraction of that total to the alleged suppression of free speech in its universities. Now I do not know whether those allegations is any more credible than the rumour that 5G mobile telephones spread COVID-19 and I am not going to get into any of those controversies. However, I do know that if the UK is ever to pay for the support that the Chancellor has given to businesses and individuals through the COVID-19 shutdown, it will need every scrap of trade and every penny of inward investment that it can get.
One of the justifications for leaving the EU was the promise of new trade deals with the rest of the world and with the USA in particular. I am following the UK's negotiations with the USA in my NIPC Brexit blog and they had been going well before the virus started to spread in the UK and USA (see Jane Lambert The Department for International Trade's Proposals for a US-UK Free Trade Agreement 4 March 2020 NIPC Brexit). Having lost more casualties to coronavirus than any other and will millions of business failures and unemployed the USA will be in no position to make up for the loss of our preferential access to the single market for very many years to come, if ever.
China, by contrast, has recovered quickly from the pandemic and with far fewer fatalities than the USA and the UK if the projection of the number of deaths in those countries by the University of "Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation is right. China leads in many technologies including telecoms, high-speed rail and civil nuclear energy for which the UK has recently sought its help. It has been a good customer for the UK's creative industries including education. There are many countries that would welcome Chinese tourists, students and investors, not least the United States. At a time when the UK is erecting barriers to trade with its nearest and largest market, is this the best possible time to quarrel with another big trading partner?
Anyone wishing to discuss this article should send me a message through my contact form.
Further Reading
Stephanie Nebahay In a first, China knocks U.S. from top spot in global patent race 17 April 2020 Reuters
One of the justifications for leaving the EU was the promise of new trade deals with the rest of the world and with the USA in particular. I am following the UK's negotiations with the USA in my NIPC Brexit blog and they had been going well before the virus started to spread in the UK and USA (see Jane Lambert The Department for International Trade's Proposals for a US-UK Free Trade Agreement 4 March 2020 NIPC Brexit). Having lost more casualties to coronavirus than any other and will millions of business failures and unemployed the USA will be in no position to make up for the loss of our preferential access to the single market for very many years to come, if ever.
China, by contrast, has recovered quickly from the pandemic and with far fewer fatalities than the USA and the UK if the projection of the number of deaths in those countries by the University of "Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation is right. China leads in many technologies including telecoms, high-speed rail and civil nuclear energy for which the UK has recently sought its help. It has been a good customer for the UK's creative industries including education. There are many countries that would welcome Chinese tourists, students and investors, not least the United States. At a time when the UK is erecting barriers to trade with its nearest and largest market, is this the best possible time to quarrel with another big trading partner?
Anyone wishing to discuss this article should send me a message through my contact form.
Further Reading
Stephanie Nebahay In a first, China knocks U.S. from top spot in global patent race 17 April 2020 Reuters
Comments
Post a Comment