Should companies worry about China’s patent push?

PARIS—Cynics tend to mock the term “Chinese IPR” (intellectual property rights) as an oxymoron—like “future historians” and “military intelligence.”

But as the Financial Times reported recently, “the rapid rise in Chinese patent filings, which have been growing at a rate of more than 20 percent a year, reflects a profound change in cultural attitudes to property, and intellectual property in particular—even if the Chinese system for protecting IP rights still has many deficiencies .”

More important, the growth in Chinese patent filings is likely to affect foreign companies that may have been reluctant to file for patents in China.

Instead of dismissing the Chinese patent system as being fatally flawed and Chinese patents as hopelessly defective, foreign companies might be better advised to invest time and resources in filing patents in China to compete with Chinese companies.

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