China is all set to go from being the world?s low-cost manufacturing hub to the world leader in innovation. The National Patent Development Strategy (2011-2020) aims to bring China to the top of the innovation charts via filing two million patents by the time the scheme is up for a mid-term review in 2015. Even if this number is cut to half (via discounting China?s ?utility-model patents? granted in addition to ?invention? patents, NYT points out), they will still have a staggering one million patent filings. The translated document details the various strategies, like shortening the average period for examining patent applications, increasing the number of patent examiners to 9,000 (the US currently has 6,300 examiners), establishing a national patent data centre, five regional and 47 local centres, using which China intends to break into the top two innovators of the world.
This is an interesting proposition for a country that has systemically indulged in flouting international standards of intellectual property rights?China produces everything from pirated copies of films to high-end couture. Perhaps becoming a world leader in the very sphere that it has perenially ignored may help change its attitude. So all the Louis Vuitton knock-off manufacturers, watch out, and start the hunt for a new location for operations. Whether or not China achieves its goals of filing two million patents by 2015, it is definitely evolving from being a low-cost, labour-intensive manufacturer towards becoming the world?s reservoir of design-intensive, high-technology products.