Innovation: China is becoming increasingly independent when it comes to patents
China has been the leader in patent applications for years. Now a research group has determined that the influence of foreign research is declining.
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Patent applications from China indicate that while the pace of innovation there is slowing, the People's Republic is becoming increasingly independent of foreign countries. This is the result of an international study, whose findings have now been presented by the Leibniz Center for European Economic Research. According to the study, the contribution of foreign knowledge, particularly from the USA, to patents in China has recently decreased significantly, while the majority now comes from the private sector and universities. Overall, this indicates that China is "increasingly reducing its dependence on foreign technology". This opens up new opportunities for the Middle Kingdom and poses challenges for the rest of the world.
Innovation is also slowing down in China
The team led by Philipp Böing from the Leibniz Center found that foreign patent applications in China recently only accounted for ten percent of the total, compared to 50 percent in the USA. At the same time, more than half of the patents from China make a greater contribution to technological progress in the People's Republic than US patents in China. The country is therefore becoming increasingly independent of the previously most important national economy in this area when it comes to innovation. Nevertheless, the average innovation contribution of Chinese patent applications is falling, and the growth rate of the "top patents that are decisive for technological progress" is also declining. The speed of innovation is therefore expected to decrease.
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The team explains that the findings are significant in light of the significant slowdown in Chinese economic growth and increasing concerns about China's decoupling from the US economy. For the analysis, AI technology was used to evaluate data on patent applications dating back to 2019. It is therefore unclear how developments have continued in the years since then. The research team writes that the reasons for the uncovered development are unclear and that domestic political backgrounds could have a significant influence. For future research, it could be useful to separate these from the consequences of global developments. The study can be viewed online.
(mho)
