China Law Blog

PanAsiaBiz/Chinalyst just did a post (h/t to China Challenges) setting economic and business numbers out of China: 

• China's per capita GDP is $1,703, ranking it 110th in the world.
• China contributes 5% of world GDP, but consumes 25-40% of the world's crude coal, iron ore, steel, alumina and cement.
• 3 in 10,000 Chinese companies have intellectual property rights for their core technologies.
• 99% of Chinese firms have no patents
• 60% of Chinese firms do not have their own brands.

The post concludes by stating "China still faces many problems, despite its amazing growth and progress, eh?  What do you think?"

Standing alone, these numbers tell me almost nothing.  The per capita GDP number simply reminds us that for all the talk of China rising, it is still essentially a third world country.  China's relatively large use of resources is an indication of its growth and transformation. 

I am not able to reach any conclusions regarding the other numbers.  I need to see comparisons with China ten years ago and/or with other countries for these to have any real meaning. 

Very few U.S. companies own any patents but is it 1%, 10%, 20%?  The 60% figure for Chinese companies with their own brands seems to me to reflect little more than the number of companies that need a brand.  My law firm has no "brand."  So what?  3 out of 10,000 have intellectual property rights for their core technologies.  What's meant by intellectual property rights?  Does it include copyrights for which no filings are necessary in China and most other countries of which I am familiar? 

I am throwing all of this out in the hopes some of you are able to make more out of these numbers than I can. 

Update:  A just released UN World Organization of Intellectual Property report (h/t to China Challenges) lists the following:

More than 130,000 applications from Chinese and foreigners were filed with Beijing in 2004, the last year for which figures were available, the World Intellectual Property organisation said. That catapulted China into fifth place in the total number filed, behind Japan, the United States, the European Patent Office and South Korea.

Over 65,000 of the applications were from Chinese, a six-fold jump from 1995, WIPO said. About the same number of foreign individuals and companies also applied in China, over seven times more than nine years earlier.

So despite any static numbers, the trend in China is obviously towards increased filing of patents and, presumably, other IP as well.