China implemented its Patent Law on April 1, 1985. Over the past two decades, industries in all sectors have been encouraged to develop their own IPR-covered technologies and have made satisfactory achievements. At the same time, these IPR achievements have helped many domestic industries to stand on their own.

China chips

China has turned from a chip consumer to a big producer. A batch of "China chips" with independent intellectual property rights has been developed out of strengthened innovative capabilities.

China Chips was a project initiated by the Ministry of Information Industry, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission in 1999 to master core IC (integrated circuit) technologies in China.

The five-year project has turned out a number of chip makers who not only have been able to develop their own proprietary core technologies but also have developed impressive market share.

For example, Fangzhou I and II chips developed by the Beijing Fangzhou Corp and Longxin chips developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences have contributed greatly to the development of network computers and tax payment systems.

The WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access) chip set, developed by Huawei, and the Huaxia network chip, developed by Sichuan Nanshan Bridge Microelectronics, have broken up foreign manufacturers' monopolies in the Chinese market.

Mobile phone chips developed by the Datang Microelectronics have been used by China Mobile and China Unicom with a cumulative sale over 100 million pieces.

Companies participating in the China Chip project have applied for 180 patents in China and 10 patents have been granted and more are expected to be permitted soon.

China's chip industry has grown at an average annual rate of more than 40 per cent, according to the Ministry of Information Industry.

With the fast-growing chip industry, China has sold 10 million chips and occupied more than 40 per cent of the world market.

Four chip bases have emerged in recent years, including the Yangtze River Delta centred in Shanghai, the Bohai Sea region centred in Beijing and Tianjin, the Pearl River Delta circling Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and the southwestern region in Chengdu.

Founder laser photo typesetting

Founder Group's laser photo typesetting system has brought light to the Chinese printing industry and changed the centuries-long Chinese printing patterns.

Type-printing is one of four inventions of ancient China. The printing technology had remained unchanged for 1,000 years until a revolutionary breakthrough occurred within the last three decades.

Since 1975, Wang Xuan, who established Founder, spearheaded research and development of laser photo typesetting systems for Chinese characters, and later, electronic publishing systems.

To remove the last hurdle of publishing Chinese characters, Wang, who is an academician with both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, invented a highly efficient compression and restoration method at superior resolutions with a specialized chip. It put an end to the lead-type publishing history in China and ushered in a new era for electronic publishing.

For the very first time, information or parameter control methodology was successfully applied to describe the strokes of each Chinese character, a registered patent in China and Europe. This revolutionized the Chinese printing industry.

Consequently, Wang initiated research activities in Chinese language newspaper editing and publishing systems capitalizing on large computer terminals, Chinese-language laser photo typesetting systems for colour printing, technology of tele-transmission of publishing pages and management systems for news collecting and editing processes.

Thanks to Wang's inventions in the laser photo typesetting technology field, Founder has reset the industry standard and become a market leader in domestic and overseas Chinese-language publishing markets.

Due to his exceptional accomplishments in science and technology, Wang was conferred "the Supreme State Science and Technology Award" China's Nobel Prize by the State Council in 2001.

Chery Auto

Chery Automobile Company has become a landmark in the development of China's auto industry since it launched the country's first self-developed car - Chery Fengyun in March 2001.

Thanks to independent research and development, Chery has been promoting its own brand of automobiles, becoming the country's first passenger cars exported to other countries.

Established in 1997 in Anhui Province's Wuhu Economy and Technology Development Zone, Chery became one of the country's top eight carmakers within five years.

By the beginning of this year, a total of 300,000 Chery cars have been sold.

Chery now produces the Qiyun, Fengyun and Oriental Sun sedans and QQ mini cars, retailing at prices between 50,000 yuan (US$6,000) and 170,000 yuan (US$20,500).

Chery's QQ model has been a success since release in the market in May 2003.

Although it ranks eighth in sales among China's carmakers, Chery is already the biggest Chinese vehicle exporter.

The company launched its foreign business in 2001 by exporting cars to Syria and now has car sales contracts with 25 countries.

The Export-Import Bank of China has earmarked a loan of 5 billion yuan (US$610 million) to Chery for the company's overseas business expansion.

The bank said the loan will aid Chery in its foreign investment efforts and overseas contracts for its cars and other mechanical, electrical and high-tech product sales.

The move furthers the State's support of the domestic car industry in its efforts to enter the international marketplace.

Chery began to produce its own brands of cars last year at a plant in Iran, making it the first Chinese automaker to produce passenger cars at plants abroad.

The company has also planned to design 14 new models for its European push in the near future.

USB flash disk

The patented invention of USB flash memory disks has become a landmark creation in China's computer storage memory field.

The flash disk industry has become very lucrative and posed to replace the floppy disks.

In November 1999, Deng Guoshun and Cheng Xiaohua, the inventors of the flash disk, applied for a patent in China.

Deng and Cheng, the founders of a Shenzhen-based high-tech company Netac, were granted the patent for "flash electronic external storage method and devices for data processing systems" by the State Intellectual Property Office in 2002.

Founded in May 1999, Netac started to produce and market its USB removable disks under the brand name of "Only Disk."

Netac has invested more than US$7.3 million into the research of USB flash drives and now earns an average annual sales volume of 200 million yuan (US$24 million).

Since 1999, Netac has suffered losses worth millions of dollars due to patent violations.

In September 2002, Netac sued Beijing-based Huaqi and Shenzhen-based Fuguanghui and Xingzhidao, all IT companies, for alleged violations of Netac's USB flash memory drive patent, and demanded immediate suspension of the alleged violations and compensation of US$490,000.

Twelve months on, on June 7, 2003, the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court as the court of the first instance ruled in Netac's favour.

Last October, Netac sued Sony for USB flash memory disk patent infringement, claiming Sony had copied its patented movable storage technology. The case is still ongoing.

On December 7 last year, the fast-growing USB flash drive industry witnessed another milestone in the intellectual property field. Netac was authorized a USB Flash Drive core patent by US authorities. It is the most prominent patent authorized ever in the USB flash drive industry in the United States.

With this patent in the United States, it ends many disputes in the industry and further confirms Netac as the inventor of the USB flash drive.

Deng said that Netac is inspired by its authorization of the US patent and will continue to seek co-operation with partners around the world.

The company will stick to its intellectual property strategy and maintain its role as the industry trendsetter and technology powerhouse, Deng said.

(China Daily 03/21/2005 page5)