SIPO’s recently released its  “Report on the Situation Regarding National Patent Strength”, (Chinese: “2012年全国专利实力状况报告”).  This report provides a glimpse into the various measures that SIPO uses to quantify how local patent offices are being rated by SIPO.  Knowing these data can be very useful in understanding what the incentives are for evaluating innovation and patent protection in China’s various localities and, accordingly, can help in how a foreign company approaches a local IP office to better enlist their support.  In theory, it should also help in identifying the regions that are affording better patent protection in China to foreigners. 

 The report  is intended to be based on certain objective, common, sustainable, and easy to obtain data.  Some of the data that is used are:

(a)    Number of invention patents in effect held per capita.  This is the first item listed by SIPO and it does not include utility model and design patents, which are not substantively examined. 

(b)   Other patent data: including Patent Cooperation Treaty patent filings; patent maintenance rates; patent abandonment rates (as a negative factor).

(c)    Type of patent applicant data: service invention patent rates; patents filed by large and medium sized enterprises.

(d)   Commercialization data: ratio of R&D to patents filed; hypothecation of patents; licensing contracts for patents; patents that are being used in commercial production (based on a ratio of new products from high tech industries and patent applications from high tech industries); and awards for high quality patents.

(e)   Litigation and enforcement data: First instance patent cases in the courts; settlement rates for patent litigation; data on patent “passing off”; data on cross-boundary cooperation on administrative patent disputes; data on human resources in administrative patent enforcement, use of administrative complaint lines, and expenses for special enforcement campaigns.

(f)     Legal and administrative structure: SIPO is trying to encourage local patent offices to be active and independent of other agencies, such as Science and Technology Bureaus, in which some local patent offices are located.  In addition, SIPO is encouraging promulgation of local legislation on patents, including incorporation of the national IP strategy and economic plans into local level policy and actions.

(g)     Cooperation with SIPO on national projects: including recognition as a model locality for IP protection, or the presence of model enterprises for IP protection.

(h)   Services and civil society: presence of in-house IP departments in companies; presence and availability of Patent Agents; use of electronic filing mechanisms for patents and electronic information services; presence of public service organizations for patents (typically government-organized non-governmental organizations); participation in SIPO training programs (including distance learning programs).

The overall leaders in this statistically-intensive report: Guangdong, Beijing, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai (in that order).   Comparative data to last year and to individual benchmarks are also provided.  These five leaders are not necessarily the leaders in other areas, including those that may be of concern to foreigners.  For example, in IP protection, the leaders were: Guangdong, Shandong, Hunan, Sichuan and Jiangsu.  Beijing and Shanghai were a more distant 11^th and 16^th place, respectively.  Beijing, Guangdong and Shanghai were also the top three jurisdictions for IP services.

The report should be used cautiously by foreign investors and rigthsholders as there is much  of concern to foreigners that is not utilized in the report, for example: numbers of foreign-related civil or administrative cases, availability of provisional measures, receptivity and accessibility of local complaint centers (including trade fairs) to  foreign complainants, availability of expert foreign language lawyers and service providers,  presence and engagement  of foreign-related civil society (INTA, QBPC, RDPAC, AmCham’s, etc.),  existence of policies that on their face discriminate or support foreign rights holders ,  availability of criminal remedies for IP infringement,  existence of “notorious markets” for IP infringing products, and evaluation of the locality by other reports on IP protection (e.g, annual Chamber reports, Section 301 reports).  In addition, as indicated above, the priorities that SIPO assigns to different factors would be different for foreigners.  Nonetheless, this is a useful report that can help foreigners in determining how “patent-friendly” different jurisdictions in China are, and can also assist in compiling a more narrowly focused report that highlights issues of concern to foreigners regarding IP protection in different regions of China.  

I also personally commend SIPO for its transparency in making this available on line.