Cathay Dupont Award by Diane Hult https://padlet.com/dianehult/i1xf79hm5rnj en-us 2017-07-06 08:21:47 UTC 2025-12-07 20:39:12 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/icons/Growing.png Cathay Dupont Award: China’s Patent Boom Brings Legal Wrangles dianehult https://padlet.com/dianehult/i1xf79hm5rnj/wish/178172006
China’s ambitious efforts to build an ‘innovation economy’ have led to a surge in patents as companies seek to protect their hard-earned intellectual property (IP). From 2008 to 2011, the number of patent applications grew by an average of more than 20% each year; last year China handled 526,412 applications, overtaking the United States for the first time, according to a report issued last week by the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, Switzerland (see ‘Patent boom’).

But that increase has been accompanied by a huge rise in patent litigation — 7,819 cases in 2011, according to China’s Supreme People’s Court, roughly twice as many as in the United States — as companies and researchers stumble through the unfamiliar terrain of IP law. Although one would expect a growing volume of patents to lead to more litigation, notes Elliot Papageorgiou, an IP-enforcement expert at law firm Rouse in Shanghai, Chinese companies are also “learning how to use IP as ‘swords’ against both local competitors as well as foreign companies”. Read Cathay Dupont Award articles here... articles here...

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