When China receives 1 patent application from a Chinese enterprise, there are 6.4 from foreign enterprises. This situation has lasted nearly 15 years.

Li Guojie who leads the Institute of Computing Technology under Chinese Academy of Sciences gave more figures to illustrate this at the forum on the sustainable development during the ongoing Beijing International Hi-Tech Expo.

Between 1985 and 2002, China recognized 98,902 patents for inventions. 62.6 percent of them, or 61,908 were from overseas. In 2001, 37,800 overseas applications were filed to Chinese patent agencies.

That contrasted sharply with less than 2000 Chinese applications on the overseas market. And most of them were engaged in herbal production, tonics and mechanic industry, rather than high technologies.

As regard to industrial technologies, patents developed by China are merely one-thirtieth of those by Japan or US, and one-fourth of those by South Korea.

Li urged to integrate Chinese patents into new standards so that China has equal say on standards setting.

.Source: People's Daily