1. Domestic Service Patent Applications in the Recent Five Years

According to the statistics of patent applications since 1985 the year of implementing the Patent Law, more than 95% foreign applications are service applications, while domestic service applications only accounted for its 1/3. However, in recent years, service applications raised more and more attention and improved its proportion greatly for its features like large investment on R&D, clear target and high commercial perspective.

Among the 251,238 domestic patent applications received by the SIPO, service applications accounted for 40% (102,456), maintaining the increasing trend in the recent five years. Among the three kinds of patents, the average increasing rate for service patent applications for inventions in recent five years was 55.1%, which amounted to 34,731 in 2003, accounting for 61.2% of the total domestic patent applications for inventions. While the average increasing rates for service patent applications for utility models and industrial designs in the recent five years respectively were 24.7% and 17.1%, which amounted to 34,044 and 33,681 in 2003, accounting for 31.6% and 38.9% of its total.

In the aspect of constitution of domestic service applications, applications from enterprises took the most share, more than 80% of the total, while the rest were taken half and half by universities and research institutes1. In recent five years, service patent applications of enterprises increased the most, with an increase of about 50,000 and an average annual increasing rate of 26.7%. Each kind of patents increased, with 35.7% for inventions, 34.0% for utility models, and 30.3% for industrial designs. Service patent applications of universities increased the fast, with an average annual increasing rate of 55.2%. 8,483 applications were increased in the five years, among which patent applications for inventions accounted for 79.2%. Those of research institutes increased annually 23.1%. 3,950 applications were increased in the five years, among which patent applications for inventions accounted for 83.5%. 

According to the distribution of domestic service patent applications by regions, the most and the fastest increasing applications in the recent fives were crowded in the economic developed regions. (Refer to Table 1)

Table 1 The Top ten Cities and Provinces in the aspect of the Increase of Service Patent Applications (1999 -2003)

NO.	Cities and Provinces	Total Increase of Service Applications(A)	Total Increase of Service Applications of Inventions(B)	Total Increase of Service Applications of Enterprises(C)	B/A	C/A
1	shanghai	15715	4313	12908	27.4%	82.1%
2	Guangdong	6676	3561	6138	53.3%	91.9%
3	Beijing	6152	4320	3401	70.2%	55.3%
4	Jiangsu	4726	1529	3827	32.4%	81.0%
5	Zhejiang	2899	1100	2104	37.9%	72.6%
6	Tianjin	2693	2334	2226	86.7%	82.7%
7	Shandong	2374	767	2057	32.3%	86.6%
8	Chongqing	2121	199	1938	9.4%	91.4%
9	Hubei	1544	801	755	51.9%	48.9%
10	Jilin	1345	511	1030	38.0%	76.6%

 

(1) Service applications from Shanghai increased the most, with 16,000 in the five years, among which 4,000 were those for inventions, while those for industrial designs increased the most, amounting to 8,397.

(2) Among the increase of 6,676 service applications from Guangdong in the five years, half were applications for inventions. The proportion of applications of enterprises in Guangdong accounted for 91.9%, the most among all provinces.

(3) Among the service patent applications from Beijing, patent applications for inventions increased the most among all provinces, amounting to 4,320 and accounting for more than 70% of the total.

2.The Status of the Patent Applications

In 2003, SIPO received 308,487 applications for three types of patents, showing an increase of 55,856 or 22.1% as compared with 252,631 applications received the previous year.

By December 31,2003, an accumulated number of 1,931,118 patent applications were filed with SIPO. Among them, 1,595,415 were domestic filings, accounting for 82.6% of the total, and 335,703 were foreign applications, accounting for 17.4%.

Since SIPO officially became a member state of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in 1994, by December 31,2003, SIPO received a total of 5,537 international applications.

5,418 international search copies, and established 4,936 international search reports. SIPO also received 2,990 demands for international preliminary examination, and 2,425 international preliminary examination reports. Of the international established applications entering China's national phase, 125,547 filings were for invention patents and 220 for utility models. In 2003, SIPO received 1,165 international applications, 1,198 international search copies, and established 1,169 international search reports. SIPO also received 708 requests for international preliminary examination, and established 656 reports. Of the international applications entering China's national phase, 24,516 filings were for invention patents and 192 for utility models.

Patent filings in 2003 showed the following features:

(1) With regard to the number of applications for the three types of patents, the number for invention patents reached 105,318, an increase of 31.3% over 80,232 of the previous year. The number for utility models amounted to 109,115, an increase of 17.2% over 93,139 of the previous year. The three types of patents were well divided wtih inventions accounting for 34.1%, utility model 35.4% and design 30.5%. (2) According to the national and foreign filings, most of the domestic applications still were patents for utility models and industrial designs, however, the proportion of patents for inventions increased, accounting for 22.6%, while most of the foreign ones were patents for inventions, accounting for 84.8%. (3) With regard to the constitution of all patent applications, domestic applications of patents for inventions were 56,769, and 48,549 were foreign applications. For the first time since 1994 becoming PCT Member State, the amount of domestic applications surpass that of foreign ones. For utility models and industrial designs, the domestic applications accounted for more than 92% of the total and almost maintained the same ratio compared with the previous years.

Table 1  Applications for Three Kinds of Patents According to Service and Non-Service in 2003

			Total			Domestic			Foreign
Kinds of Patents
			Total (B)	Service (A)	Non-Service (A)	Total (B)	Service (A)	Non-Service (A)	Total (B)	Service (A)	Non-Service (A)
		Number of Applications	1931118	878089	1053029	1595415	558984	1036431	335703	319105	16598
Accumulated Total		%(A/B)	100.0%	45.5%	54.5%	100.0%	35.0%	65.0%	100.0%	95.1%	4.9%
		Number of Applications	308487	157488	150999	251238	102456	148782	57249	55032	2217
	Total	%(A/B)	100.0%	51.1%	48.9%	100.0%	40.8%	59.2%	100.0%	96.1%	3.9%
		Number of Applications	105318	81495	23823	56769	34731	22038	48549	46764	1785
	Invention	%(A/B)	100.0%	77.4%	22.6%	100.0%	61.2%	38.8%	100.0%	96.3%	3.7%
This Year		Number of Applications	109115	35120	73995	107842	34044	73798	1273	1076	197
	Utility Model	%(A/B)	100.0%	32.2%	67.8%	100.0%	31.6%	68.4%	100.0%	84.5%	15.5%
		Number of Applications	94054	40873	53181	86627	33681	52946	7427	7192	235
	Design	%(A/B)	100.0%	43.5%	56.5%	100.0%	38.9%	61.1%	100.0%	96.8%	3.2%

Table 2  Distribution of Domestic Non-Service and Service Applications,  2003
		Service
Total	Non-Services	Total	Universities and Colleges	Scientific Research Institute	Enterprises	Organizations
251238	148782	102456	10252	6998	84117	1089
		(B/A)	10.0%	6.8%	82.1%	1.1%

　

Table 3 Distribution of Domestic Service Applications, 2000-2003
	2000	2001	2002	2003
Total	53375	60104	81242	102456
Universities and Colleges	2924	3810	5981	10252
Scientific Reaearch Institutes	4122	4360	5373	6998
Enterprises	45862	51302	68962	84117
Organizations	467	632	926	1089

Table 4  Top Ten Foreign Corporations According to Their Applications  in 2003
No.	INID	Name of Corporation	Number
1	JP	Matsushita Co.	2144
2	KR	Samsung Electronics	1568
3	JP	SEIKO Co.	943
4	JP	Canon Co.	882
5	KR	LG Co.	805
6	JP	Sony Co.	742
7	JP	Sanyo Electronics Co.	692
8	JP	Toshiba Co.	672
9	JP	Mitsubishi Co.	589
10	US	IBM	581

Table 5 Top Ten Domestic Universities and Colleges According to Their Applications in 2003
No.	Name of Universities and Colleges	Number
1	Tsinghua Univ.	764
2	Shanghai Jiaotong Univ.	730
3	Zhejiang Univ.	658
4	Huangzhou Univ of Science and Technology	230
5	Wuhan Univ.	224
6	Fudan Univ.	223
7	Tianjin Univ.	222
8	Southern China Science and Engineering Univ.	206
9	Southeastern University	192
10	Xi'an Jiaotong Univ.	186

Table 6 Top Ten Domestic Scientific Research Institutes According to Their Applications in 2003
No.	Name of Scientific Research Institute	Number
1	Shanghai Light Mechanics Institute,Chinese Academy of Sciences	318
2	Petrochemical Science Institute,SINOPEC	230
3	Metal Institute,Chinese Academy of Sciences	173
4	Industry Technology Institute	170
5	Dalian Chemistry and Physicis Institute,Chinese Academy of Sciences	160
6	Fushun Petrochemical Science Institute,SINOPEC	116
7	No.2 Insitute,ZTE(Shenzhen)	107
8	Chuangchun Applied Chemistry Insitute,Chinese Academy of Sciences	106
9	Chuangchun Light Mechanics and Physics,Chinese Academy of Sciences	105
10	Computing Technology Institute,Chinese Academy of Sciences	88

Table 7 Top Ten Domestic Enterprises According to Their Applications in 2003
No.	Name of Enterprises	Number
1	Yuejin Electronics(Tianjin)Co.LTD	1606
2	Huawei Technology Co.LTD	1551
3	Hongfujin Precision Industry (Shenzhen)Co.LTD	944
4	Lifan(Chongqing)	761
5	Fushikang(kunshan)Computer Interfaces Co.LTD	527
6	SINOPEC	500
7	Haier Group	477
8	Youda Light and Electronics	414
9	Mingji	411
10	Lenovo(Beijing)Co.LTD	399

Table 8  Top Ten Foreign Corporations According to Their Applications of Invention in 2003
No.	INID	Name of Corporation	Number
1	JP	Matsushita Co.	1817
2	KR	Samsung Electronics	1560
3	JP	Canon Co.	820
4	JP	SEIKO Corporation	781
5	KR	LG Electronics	624
6	JP	Toshiba Co.	583
7	US	IBM	581
8	JP	SONY	560
9	JP	Mitsubishi Co.	556
10	JP	Sanyo Electronics	541

Table 9 Top Ten Domestic Universities and Colleges According to Their Applications of Invention in 2003
No.	Name of Universities and Colleges	Number
1	Shanghai Transportation University	696
2	Tsinghua University	676
3	Zhejiang University	492
4	Fudan University	202
5	Tianjin University	162
6	Wuhan University	157
7	Xi'an Jiaotong University	154
8	Huangzhou University Of science and Technology	147
	Sichuan University	147
10	Haerbin Industrial University	146

Table 10 Top Ten Domestic Scientific Research Institutes According to Their Applications of Invention in 2003
No.	Name of  Scientific Research Institute	Number
1	Petrochemical Science Institute,SINOPEC	224
2	Shanghai Light Mechanics Institute,Chinese Academy of sciences	219
3	Dalian Chemistry and Physicis Institute,Chinese Academy of Sciences	149
4	Metal Institute,Chinese Academy of Sciences	142
5	Industry Technology Institute	140
6	Fushun Petrochemical Science Institute,SINOPEC	106
7	Chuangchun Applied Chemistry Insitute,Chinese Academy of Sciences	104
8	No.2 Insitute,ZTE(Shenzhen)	90
9	Chemistry Institute,Chinese Academy of Sciences	87
	Computing Technology Institute,Chinese Academy of Sciences	87

Table 11 Top Ten Domestic Enterprises According to Their Applications of Invention in 2003
No.	Name of Enterprises	Number
1	Yuejin Electronics Co.Ltd(Tianjin)	1581
2	Huawei Technology Co.Ltd	1414
3	SINOPEC	478
4	Youda Light and Elecronics	411
	Hongfujin Precision Industry(Shenzhen)Co.LTD	411
6	Mingji	270
7	Lenovo(Beijing)Co.LTD	241
	Yingyeda Co.LTD	241
9	ZTE	239
10	VIA Electronics Co.LTD	198

3. Distribution of Patent Applications by Region, Industry, and Country

As compared with the year of 2003, the ranking changed with regard to the number of domestic patent applications. The top ten provinces and cities were Guangdong, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Taiwan, Beijing, Shandong, Liaoning, Sichuan and Fujian.

 In 2003, service applications have a faster and steeper increase than the previous year. The number of patent applications filed by domestic enterprises reached 84,117, a rise of 22.0% against 68,962 of the previous year. The number of patent applications filed by colleges and universities was 10,252, an increase of 71.4% over 5,981 of the previous year. And the number of applications filed by scientific and research institutes was 6,998, an increase of 30.2% over 5,373 of the previous year.

By December 31,2003, 125 countries and regions had filed their applications in China. In the year 2003,China received applications from 90 countries and regions, for 9 of which it was the first time to file applications in China. The newcomers were Antigua and Babuda, Brunei, Central Africa Republic, West Sahara, Mali, Secheilles, Sudan, Trinida and Dobago, Zambia. The top ten countries in terms of the number of patent applications were Japan, USA, the Republic of Korea, Germany, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Italy and Sweden.

Table 12 Top Ten Provinces and Municipalities According to Their Applications Filed in 2003
No.	Provinces or cities	Number
1	Guangdong	43186
2	Shanghai	22374
3	Zhejiang	21463
4	Jiangsu	18393
5	Taiwan	18112
6	Beijing	17003
7	Shandong	15794
8	Liaoning	13545
9	Sichuan	7443
10	Fujian	7236

Table 13 Top Ten Countries According to Their Applications Filed in 2003
No.	States	Number
1	Japan	24241
2	Unite States	12221
3	Korea	5015
4	Germany	4522
5	France	1941
6	the Netherland	1376
7	Swiss	1374
8	the UK	1314
9	Italy	765
10	Sweden	694

4. Distribution of Patent Applications by Technical Field

Applications for inventions and utility models were classified according to IPC in 2003, 195,123 finished, a 7.6% increase over 181,373 of the previous year.

As far as the classification of invention patent applications in 2003 was concerned, patent filing in 2003 showed the following features:

(1) Applications relating to preparations for medical, dental, or toilet purposes (A61K) led for the 12th consecutive year in 2003, among them up to 3/4 were domestic applications. Applications relating to electric digital processing (G06F) ranked 2nd, domestic applications accounted for more than 50.0% of the total Applications related to semiconductor parts (H01L)ranked the 3rd, 2/3 of which were from foreign applicants.

(2) Applications related to medicine (A61K) and electronic data processing (G06F) ranked among the top three for the eighth consecutive year.

(3) The top ten subclasses that were led by foreign applications remained unchanged with those of the previous year, among which applications dominating in proportion were related to information saving (G11B), heterocyclic compound (C07D), equipment for transfer, image and communication (H04N), each accounting for over 70% of the total in their respective subclass.

Since 99% applications for utility models in 2003 were domestic applications, the above ranking reflected the overall status of domestic utility model applications. For utility model filings, those related to containers or packaging for storage or transportation of materials (B65D) ranked 1st for the tenth consecutive year. Applications relating to electronic data processing (G06F) ranked 2nd, and applications related to electric transmission linkage (H01R) ranked 3rd .

Table 14 Applications for Patents for Inventions and Utility Models Classified According to IPC in 2003
	A-H Total	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
Accumulated Total	1403796	330063	279980	136645	31414	93265	185525	172900	174004
	100.0%	23.5%	19.9%	9.7%	2.2%	6.6%	13.2%	12.3%	12.4%
Total in 2002	195123	41507	35126	18939	3722	12313	22908	29981	30627
	100.0%	21.3%	18.0%	9.7%	1.9%	6.3%	11.7%	15.4%	15.7%
Invention	93361	16895	11213	16672	2029	2535	6456	18383	19178
	100.0%	18.1%	12.0%	17.9%	2.2%	2.7%	6.9%	19.7%	20.5%
Utility Model	101762	24612	23913	2267	1693	9778	16452	11598	11449
	100.0%	24.2%	23.5%	2.2%	1.7%	9.6%	16.2%	11.4%	11.3%

Table 15 Top Ten IPC Sub-Classes of Applications for Patent for Inventions in 2003
Total	Sub-class	Number	Residents	Sub-class	Number	Non-Residents	Sub-class	Number
1	A61K	5681	1	A61K	4237	1	G06F	2007
2	G06F	4335	2	G06F	2328	2	H01L	1899
3	H01L	2809	3	A23L	1059	3	A61K	1444
4	H04L	1844	4	H01L	910	4	G11B	1097
5	H04N	1494	5	H04L	854	5	C07D	1045
6	G11B	1449	6	G01N	754	6	H04N	1037
7	C07D	1421	7	H04Q	542	7	H04L	990
8	H04Q	1317	8	C12N	527	8	H04Q	775
9	G01N	1224	9	C07C	481	9	G02B	697
10	A23L	1207	10	C04B	467	10	H04B	663

Table 16 Top Ten IPC Sub-Classes of Applications for Patent for Utility Models in 2003
Total	Sub-class	Number	Residents	Sub-class	Number
1	B65D	2351	1	B65D	2338
2	G06F	1626	2	G06F	1601
3	H01R	1547	3	H01R	1489
4	F16K	1239	4	F16K	1236
5	A61M	1159	5	A61M	1158
6	A47G	1157	6	A47G	1150
7	A47J	1102	7	A47J	1095
8	E06B	1088	8	E06B	1085
9	E21B	1001	9	E21B	1001
10	A61B	963	10	A61B	961

Table 17  Three Kinds of Domestic and Foreign Patents Granted According to Service and Non-Service in 2003

			Total			Domestic			Foreign
Kinds of Patents
			Total (B)	Service (A)	Non-Service (A)	Total (B)	Service (A)	Non-Service (A)	Total (B)	Service (A)	Non-Service (A)
		Number of Granted	1065261	468333	596928	941940	351175	590765	123321	117158	6163
Accumulated Total		%(A/B)	100.0%	44.0%	56.0%	100.0%	37.3%	62.7%	100.0%	95.0%	5.0%
		Number of Granted	182226	93828	88398	149588	62368	87220	32638	31460	1178
	Total	%(A/B)	100.0%	51.5%	48.5%	100.0%	41.7%	58.3%	100.0%	96.4%	3.6%
		Number of Granted	37154	31744	5410	11404	6895	4509	25750	24849	901
	Invention	%(A/B)	100.0%	85.4%	14.6%	100.0%	60.5%	39.5%	100.0%	96.5%	3.5%
This Year		Number of Granted	68906	24506	44400	68291	24008	44283	615	498	117
	Utility Model	%(A/B)	100.0%	35.6%	64.4%	100.0%	35.2%	64.8%	100.0%	81.0%	19.0%
		Number of Granted	76166	37578	38588	69893	31465	38428	6273	6113	160
	Design	%(A/B)	100.0%	49.3%	50.7%	100.0%	45.0%	55.0%	100.0%	97.4%	2.6%

5. Patent Examination and Granting

By December 31, 2003, SIPO had granted an accumulated total of 1,065,261 patents. In 2003, 182,226 patents were granted, with an increase of 37.6% over 132,399 of the previous year.

In 2003, 77,472 applications for patents for invention were published. And requests for substantive examination reached 67,634, 3,833 applications were rejected and 16,861 were withdrawn during substantive examination. A total of 37,154 patents were granted for inventions, an increase of 73.0% over 21,473 of the previous year.

As far as utility models were concerned, 68,906 were granted in 2003, with an increase of 19.9% as compared with 57,484 of the previous year. 215 were rejected and 12,308 were withdrawn..

In 2003, 76,166 patents for industrial designs were granted, with an increase of 42.5% against 53,442 of the previous year. 32 were rejected and 5,311 were withdrawn.

6. Analysis and forecast on the situation of patent applications relating to hybrid electric vehicle

Since 1990s, growing environmental and energy sources? problems have urged global vehicle industry to research and develop new type vehicle, which is energy saving and environmental protection. Pure electric vehicle and fuel cell vehicle are the ultimate choices to satisfy zero exhaust emission target and take the place of traditional internal-combustion engine vehicle. But now, some central technical problems, such as energy density, lifetime of battery and preparation of hydrogen etc. , can't be solved. It has limited the development of the pure electric vehicle and fuel cell vehicle. Hybrid electric vehicle is a vehicle with an electrical prime mover and a combustion engine, in which the electrical prime mover and the combustion engine either singly or in combination, drive the ultimate propulsive elements. Hybrid electric vehicle is a new type vehicle, which has the advantages of pure electric vehicle and traditional internal-combustion engine vehicle. Before the choke point of battery technique being breached, hybrid electric vehicle will represent the main development direction of the vehicle industry in the 21st century.

In recent years, patent applications, relating to hybrid electric vehicle, keep increasing. By the end of November in 2003, the total number of the applications relating to hybrid electric vehicle has reached 1167(not including PCT applications). The distributing situation of these applications'countries, applicants and main international patent classification are shown in figures 1 to 3, it can be seen from the statistical results:

United States and Japan all pay great attention to research and develop hybrid electric vehicle technique and occupy patent market in time. It can be seen from the distributing situation figure of the applicants. Many manufacturers of the relating industries all possess of patent applications pointing to hybrid electric vehicle technique. This shows that the relating industries in Japan are developing in phase. United States' patent applications mainly focused on FORD GLOBAL TECH INC. and FORD MOTOR CO. Many countries' large motor corporations, such as GENERAL MOTOR of United States, PEUGEOT CITROEN AUTOMOBILES SA of France, DAIMLER CHRYSLER AG of Germany, ROVER GROUP of Great Britain, HYUNDAI MOTOR CO. LTD. Of Korea all have a small quantity of applications. This shows, many world famous motor corporations and research institutions have converted their emphasis to more enforceable hybrid electric vehicle.

In china, research and development of hybrid electric vehicle started from the middle of 1990s, it is also a great research topic of 863 PLAN. At present, lots of domestic manufactures and research institutions have paid great attention to hybrid electric vehicle research and development, such as EAST WIND AUTOMOBILE COMPANY, FIRST AUTOMOBILE GROUP CORP., TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY, NORTH JIAOTONG UNIVERSITY etc., they all have some relating patent applications. But compared with foreign advanced techniques from the technical point of view, there still exists difference.

It can be seen from figure 3, the main international patent classification distributing situation. The primary technical content of these patent applications primarily relates to the arrangement, energy storage and control strategy of hybrid electric vehicle. Therein, arrangement or mounting of plural diverse prime movers, which determines the form of hybrid electric vehicle, is the mainstream of passing applications.

Now, the control strategy of hybrid electric vehicle is not very perfect. In the future, optimizing of the control strategy is a developmental trend. Perfect control strategy not only need to realize the best fuel economy of vehicle, but also need to consider suiting for all kinds of driving conditions of the vehicle. At the same time need to pay attention to lots of requirements, such as lifetime of the battery, engine emission, driving characteristic etc., to integrated control. Furthermore, for the future development of the hybrid electric vehicle, it's confronting with the problem of improving the lifetime and the charge and discharge characteristic of the energy storage device in hybrid electric vehicle. In the future, patent applications relating to these contents will have the increasing trend.

7. Analysis and Forecast on Patents in the Field of Semiconductor

With the fast development of semiconductor technology and the appearance of semiconductor light-emitting devices, Semiconductor light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have drawn wide attention and develop rapidly. Fig.1 show the application amount about LEDs. In Fig.1, the total application amount was about 885.In which 305 were belonged to Japan, 373 were belonged to China in which 214 were belonged to Taiwan region of China, 159 were belonged to Enterprises, College and Universities, Scientific and Research Institutes and Individual, accounting for 35%, 24% and 18% respectively. According to application origins, applications are centralized in several large corporations of Japan, the United States, Germany, China Taiwan, such as Nichia Kagaku Kogyo Corp., OSRAM OPTO semiconductors GMBH & Co., TOYODA GOSEI & Corp., PERMINLAI PROD Co., General Electric Co., Guanglei SCI & TECH Co.. Applications filed by domestic applicants are mainly from Tsing Hua University, Semiconductor Research Institute CAS, Beijing University, Changchun Research Institute for Optics Precision Mechanics & Physics CAS. Concerning the gallium nitride (GaN) based compound or gallium arsenide (GaAs) based compound light-emitting devices, domestic applicants were relatively decentralized.

As far as the content of the applications was concerned, it was mainly focused on utilizing gallium arsenide (GaAs) based compound, gallium nitride (GaN) based compound as light-emitting materials; using sapphine,SiC,Si,ZnO material as the substrate materials; transparency electrode materials; flip-chip package; resin including different particle-size fluorescent materials, and so on LEDs chips have constituted in either homojunction structure, heterojunction structure or double heterojunction structure that have MIS junction, PIN junction or pn junction, single quantum-well structure or multiple quantum-wells structure is used as active layer. The main purposes of applications are to realize large power and high efficient device for white light illumination.

At present, all large corporations are active in semiconductor illumination project. This will bring a great opportunity to semiconductor LEDs, and corporations will more emphasis on Intellectual Property stratagem of semiconductor LEDs illumination. In the future, applications will focus on epitaxial process for quantum well structure, manufacturing of direct white-lighting chip, improvement on package technology and selection on different particle-size fluorescent substance etc. High efficient and large power white light LEDs still remains the hotspot in patent applications.

8. Analysis and Prospect on Patent Applications Related to Polymer Chemistry

With the fast development of national economy, the need of polymer materials, especially functional polymer materials becomes increasingly strong. The new technology and the new material related to polymer chemistry come forth continuously, and hence the amount of the corresponding patent applications has been increased year after year. This technical field becomes more active, and its development prospect also becomes more extensive.

According to incomplete statistics, from Jan. 1, 2003 to Oct. 31, 2003, the amount of patent applications based on International Patent Classification C08 reached to 1,150. Among them, foreign patent applications were 695(accounting for 60% of the total), and mainly filed by several large corporations from Japan, United States, and Europe etc. Domestic applications were 455 and mainly filed by universities, research institutions, large enterprises, and individual applicants.

From the distribution of patent applications in this field, the ratio of amount of domestic to foreign patent applications has been to about 13:20 since 1996. In the field of C08F and C08G making up for 41% of the total amount of the patent applications of polymer chemistry, the ratio of amount of domestic to foreign patent applications is about 35:65. But in view of their intrinsic technological content, there are great differences between foreign and domestic applications. Foreign applications are mostly related to newer and higher technical levels.

From 1996, the amount of applications of polymer chemistry has rised year after year. By 2003, the amount of applications had been increased by near 30%. The applica-tions increased most are related to polysaccharides and derivatives thereof belonging to C08B. The amount of applications in the first ten months of 2003 had been increased to 96 while it was 58 in 1996. So if calculated as the whole year of 2003, it is increased by almost 100%, and the amount of domestic applications among them accounts for 94%. In this field, other polysaccharides and derivatives thereof, not including cellulose and starch, especially chitin and chitosan, are the main part of the patent applications increased. If adding compositions of cellulose and compositions of starch thereto, it is noticeable that, domestic applicants make a sufficient use of abundant natural resources of our country and a deep study to the industrial aspects with relative low technological contents and high commercial values. This impels the patent applications in this field rising swiftly and vigorously. And the domestic applications have an predominance in this field. The important uses of chitin and chitosan in foodstuff industry, environmental protection, function materials, medical and health, agriculture and textiles and other light industry etc., make this field become very active around the world. For example, in Japan, there is one additional patent application related to chitin and chitosan filed every other 3 days averagely. The domestic patent applications in the aspect of film-forming agent for color film made of chitosan, of artificial skin made of chitosan, and of innoxious flocculant etc., keep ahead all over the world.

In the field of polycondensation polymer, there is a faster increment in patent applications related to polymer composition which belong to International Patent Classification C08L. One aspect thereof relates to the compositions of epoxy resin and its derivatives (C08L63) and the other relates to the compositions of polyurethanes and its derivatives (C08L75). Both aspects fall into the old, mature and extensively used technical field but with continual modifications. For example, they mainly involve modifying the epoxy resin to improve its purity, adding the specific filler therein to achieve low stress, in order to be used for integrated circuit encapsulation better; or modifying the curing agent, such as aromatic amines, to reduce toxicity and its curing temperature; as well as some new curing agents such as dicyandiamide curing agents formed by the reaction between imidazole and isocyanate; functional curing agents used for extinction, flame retardance, and improving adhesiveness, and so on. In the field of polyurethanes, for example, some chain extenders based on dibasic alcohols containing perfluoro alkyl groups, are used to producepolyurethanes containing fluorine, so as to improve their film-forming property and biological stability; and some new specific functional groups such as carbon-carbon double bonds etc. are introduced therein to make polyure-thanes widely used for cosmetics, coating etc..

In a word, because of the deficient investment in basic research of polymer compounds, the amount of the domestic applications in this field remains fewer, while these applications centralized in the modifications to the foreign patents or polymer compound compositions. We have relatively fewer domestic patent applications of polymer compound and lower technology level. For example, in the field of chitin and chitosan, most of the domestic applications relate to the extraction technology of the raw material, while high-tech patents related to the deep-processed products, which bring high value-added to the products, are relatively fewer.

Of course, in the field of polymer chemistry, some new trends have arisen in the domestic applications. For example, the amount of the applications related to nano-polymer materials has been increased remarkably. This provides excellent physical and mechanical properties and chemical properties such as high strength, high heat resistance, and high modulus etc., to the novel polymer materials. Their technical coverage also becomes wide. Besides, by selecting the new monomers or modifying the polymers, the degradability and biological compatibility of the polymer are improved. These result in an increment of the amount of domestic polymer chemistry patent applications. And it is believed that the amount will be increased further. Foreign major companies tend to be more special in technology, and invent application-dependent polymers. That is, according to the need of the specific application and the drawback of the prior art, they will develop novel polymers. So it has been found more patent applications related to polymers characterized by preparation methods or performance parameters. It is also found some patent applications related to the new polymerization methods, such as olefin free radical polymerization methods based on atom transfer radical polymerzation, etc..

1.Although the service patent applications of government agencies and organizations also increased, due to their small amount (1089 in 2003), they were neglected.

2013-07-17