According to an interesting article in Business Week today, China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) claims to have received 694,000 patent applications in 2007. That puts it far ahead of both the U.S., with 484,955 applications, and Japan, with 443,150.

The article also mentions an equally interesting study conducted by Evaluserve, an intellectual-property analytics company, which notes that over the last two decades, “China has taken a variety of steps to enhance its patent system, including creating an online, searchable patent database and a hierarchy of courts for handling intellectual-property disputes.”

We have know that in the past few years patent filings in China have been up as much as 20% per year, but according to the article, this could be a sign that China is starting to appreciate the value in protecting intellectual property rights.  Only time will tell. 

 http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2008/db2008063_332712.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_technology