On April 24, a white paper on intellectual property conditions in Jiangsu Province was jointly issued by 27 institutions, including Jiangsu Intellectual Property Office, Jiangsu Administration of Industry and Commerce, Jiangsu Copyright Office and Court of Jiangsu Province. Though a remarkable number of patents have been applied in the province in recent years, most of them are in the hands of multinationals, especially those in high-tech fields.

 According to the white paper, in 2003, the province handled 18,393 patent applications, having outnumbered Beijing, ranking the fourth in the nation. Patent application is becoming prevalent in the southern areas of the province: 22 counties (towns, districts) own over 100 patent cases, including Kunshan City (1,000), Wujin District (600) and Jiangyin City (400).

However, many multinationals from Japan, the United States and Europe are struggling to have the patent products registered ahead of their Chinese counterparts. The multinationals’ applications count for more than 50 percent of the total in high-tech fields, 70 percent in computer tech, 87.3 in biotechnology, 92.4 in information technology, 90 percent in semi-conductors. Obviously, the patent market in Jiangsu Province is being monopolized by foreign magnets, a situation similar to other parts of China.

Chen Suning, director of the Jiangsu Intellectual Property Office, said that foreign companies’ monopoly has seriously affected local enterprises’ strategy to become big and powerful international enterprises. This is partly due to the opening of the market, said Chen, but on the other hand, it is due to local enterprises’ poor awareness of IPO protection.

(China.org.cn by Li Liangdu, April 29, 2004)