Patent concentration, innovation and development (Intellectual Property News)
On January 17th, the State Council Press Office held a press conference on the operation of the national economy in 2021. The released data showed that in 2021, China’s gross domestic product (GDP) exceeded 110 trillion yuan, up 8.1 percentage points year-on-year, and the national economy continued to recover and develop. At the same time, China has made great efforts to deepen reform, open wider to the outside world and promote innovation, making new breakthroughs in high-quality development, and achieving rapid development in industries such as electronic and communication equipment manufacturing, pharmaceutical manufacturing, information transmission, software and information technology services. These industries have one remarkable thing in common-intensive patent technology.
At present, cultivating and expanding patent-intensive industries has become an important measure to promote the integration of intellectual property rights into high-quality economic and social development in China. In 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic had a great impact on economic and social development, and China’s patent-intensive industries still maintained steady growth, with an added value of more than 12 trillion yuan and a contribution rate of 24.6% to GDP growth. Contrarian growth highlights innovation resilience, and promotes more value orientation with the trend. Experts pointed out that "the proportion of added value of patent-intensive industries in GDP" as an expected indicator is included in the medium-term target of the Outline of Building a Powerful Intellectual Property Country (2021-2035) to 2025 and the indicator system of the National Intellectual Property Protection and Utilization Plan during the Tenth Five-Year Plan, which will further play the role of quality foundation and value orientation of indicators, guide the transformation and upgrading of industrial structure, and strengthen the support ability of releasing intellectual property rights for high-quality development.
Innovation is transformed into development tenacity
According to the Statistical Classification of Intellectual Property (Patent)-intensive Industries (2019), intellectual property (patent)-intensive industries refer to the industrial clusters whose invention patent density and scale meet the prescribed standards, which rely on intellectual property to participate in market competition and conform to the innovation and development orientation.
"Compared with other industries, patent-intensive industries have stronger innovation ability and higher scientific and technological content. The innovation ability echoes the adjustment and upgrading ability of the industry. The rich technical reserves also provide the industry with relatively rich adjustment and change space, enabling the industry to better and faster adapt to the market demand at all stages of economic and social development, and the market competitiveness is outstanding. " Talking about the comparative advantages of patent-intensive industries, Ren Shengce, director of the Innovation and Competition Research Center of Shanghai International Intellectual Property Institute of Tongji University, said in an interview with this reporter that patent-intensive industries are more dependent on talents and capital, and have relatively small demand for labor factors. They emphasize the balanced use of all factors, the structure is more reasonable, and intellectual property rights protect patent-intensive industries more fully. These comparative advantages together shape the characteristics of patent-intensive industries’ development resilience and strong risk resistance.
This development tenacity inspired by innovation has been confirmed in many ways. Under the background of global anti-epidemic and epidemic prevention, China’s medicine and medical industry has given full play to its innovative ability, put forward a series of smart protection schemes to meet the needs of epidemic prevention and control, and produced a number of innovative medical service products. For example, COVID-19 intelligent CT film reading system and COVID-19 auxiliary analysis software based on artificial intelligence technology can empower the whole process of diagnosis and treatment, and help the whole chain of medical security to improve the level of health services. Statistics on the added value of patent-intensive industries show that in 2020, the growth rate of China’s pharmaceutical and medical industry will accelerate, with a year-on-year increase of 10.1%.
On the world economic stage, China’s patent-intensive industries also show stable anti-risk ability and trade driving force. According to the report on the foreign trade situation of the Ministry of Commerce, in 2020, knowledge-intensive service trade will keep growing against the trend when traditional services and manufacturing-related services are obviously affected by the epidemic. By October 2021, intellectual property royalties will be the second largest increase in the export volume of knowledge-intensive service trade, and the contribution of patent-intensive industries will occupy an important share in the statistical caliber of intellectual property royalties.
"Patent-intensive industries have outstanding innovation capabilities and strong market competitiveness, and have become a strong support and important development direction for innovative countries to promote high-quality economic and social development." The person in charge of the Strategic Planning Department of China National Intellectual Property Administration said that the development of patent-intensive industries is an objective requirement and the main driving force for China’s high-quality development.
Patent-intensive needs to be "dense" enough.
The national accounting and publishing mechanism for the added value of patent-intensive industries has been established and operated for three years, and all localities are also accelerating the process of bringing the added value of patent-intensive industries into the local statistical index system. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, "the proportion of added value of patent-intensive industries in GDP" was included in the national major top-level design index system of intellectual property rights, which further emphasized the value orientation of encouraging innovation and increasing industrial patent intensity.
Patent density not only refers to quantity density, but also emphasizes that "density" is high enough and quality is excellent. "The definition of patent-intensive industries emphasizes’ relying on intellectual property rights to participate in market competition’ and considers the technological innovation level of industries and enterprises. For the monitoring of comprehensive innovation level, in addition to paying attention to patent density and scale, we should also pay attention to the quality and influence of patents, the scope of protection of patents in the global market, the relationship between patents and productivity, and the efficiency of converting patents into main business income. " Ren Shengce pointed out that the baton of statistical indicators of patent-intensive industries should be "set more scientifically, measured more accurately and used more sparingly".
Aipeiyi Optoelectronic Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Aipeiyi) is a "specialized and innovative" enterprise in the field of information and communication technology manufacturing. The company has developed and launched the world’s first optical anti-shake product for smart phones. At present, Apex has nearly 100 core patents in the field of optical image stabilization, of which nearly one third are basic invention patents. "The statistical monitoring of patent-intensive industries is a positive incentive mechanism, which further releases the signal that innovation is important to enterprises." Hong Hangqing, chairman of Aipeiyi, said in an interview with this reporter that he expects to see clearer quality orientation and fairer and more comprehensive market competition considerations in the indicator orientation.
"Only by stabilizing the indicators can we clearly indicate the direction of value and better develop the intellectual property economy based on patent-intensive industries. In addition to industrial monitoring and indicator design, we need to make further efforts in policy support, mechanism reform and market optimization. " Ren Shengce said. (Reporter Li Yangfang)