The statistics shows that in a year where everyone is trying to recover from the financial crisis, there is a dip in the amount of intellectual property filed with the various bodies. According to a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) statistics, there has been a reduction of PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) filings from around the world by as much as 4.5% in 2009. There are no surprises here. One main reason being that people are busy trying to salvage their companies in the light of dipped sales. It would only be logical that some of those funds earmarked for use in intellectual filings be allocated to something else that is more life threatening. However, looking deeper into those stats revealed that in contrast to the Western countries, the Eastern block of countries comprising China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan shows an increase. IP filings can wait. Indeed, China became the fifth largest PCT filer with a strong growth rate of 29.7%, representing some 7,900 international applications. These figures are giving those technocrats in Washington nightmares. In the same period, the US filing rate fell by over 11 percent. But does a fall in filing an indication of trouble, or for that matter does an increase indicate a great prowess?
On the surface, it does seem as a troubling sign when the IP filings dip because IP filings always precede the actual output of products, sometimes by three to four years. If there is a continuous decline for a few years, it will result in a declining growth for the future. However, IP filings today is quiet different from years gone by. The phenomenon started when the USPTO begun granting patents to software and business processes in the eighties. The result was an immense surge in the number of IP filings from all quarters. It was like a gold rush, notwithstanding that IP filing cost went up by several notches. It was more like every Tom, Dick and Harry putting in their last dime for a piece of cake. Fast forward to the days when in China, already swelled by a large and surging direct foreign investment, together with plenty of government encouragements, people were beating each other to file whatever they have in hand, never mind if it qualifies at all of being patentable or not. The factories were running at almost peak levels and the people running the R & D department had to do their share too. So it was a race of sorts; a race to beat your fellow men to see who is more sophisticated.
From the point of sophistication, it would not be surprised to find that there is very little matter in the China filings. Most of the patents don’t belong to those cutting edge types. Indeed, most of them are just variation of existing items. It is more of like patent splashing. You just go out and buy yourself a few cans of paints and start to splash it all over the place, like painting graffiti. That is just what is happening in China, and to a lesser extend in Taiwan and Korea. There will not be any revolutionary technology coming out from there. We can be sure that in another decade or so, those products with a make in China tag will not change the way we do things, like what Apple, or even Google had pioneered the way of life as we know of it now. The reason is because people’s mind takes a long path towards innovation and that has not occurred in China as it occurred in the west. It takes time and plenty of space. In particular, a space of free enterprise and an entrepreneurial spirit that is not constrained by the state and authorities. China has been a great factory backyard helped mostly by American money and buying power. In its endeavor to catch up with the west, it has invested a lot of money in enlarging its pool of technocrats and engineers, but sadly to say, you need something more to be able to bake that cake. You need freedom, freedom to explore, and freedom to do what you like, without having to be fearful of going against the grain.
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