The statistics from the State Intellectual Property show that there was a decrease of 10.3% of all foreign applications in China, the first time for 10 years. In spite of the decrease in quantity, the quality of the foreign applications is higher, indicating the leading positions in those areas such as electric power, telecommunications, computer technology, optical and audio-visual technology.
To be specific, there were a total of 854,770 patent applications for inventions, 525,490 were filed by using PCT channel. The total of granted patents for foreign applicants is 630,980 in 2009.
In terms of the countries, Japan ranks first with 30,284 applications for inventions, other countries are United States of America with 21,798, European Union with 21,455, Korea with 5907. With regard to the enterprises, a total of 80,900, accounting for 94.6& of all foreign applications for inventions. The top three applications are Sony with 1970 applications, Panasonic with 1620, and Philips with 1450.
The statistic show that the top five technical areas are electric motor, electric devices and electric power with 7010 applications for inventions, telecommunications with 5935, computer technology with 4905, optical technology with 4302, and audio-visual technology with 4092.
