On July 28, China announces its first batch of “innovative enterprises” list. A total of 91 enterprises will be formally entitled “innovative enterprises” after two years’ trying out. During the two years after the pilot project of constructing “innovative enterprises” is launched, the number of applications of patent of invention increases from 9,300 in 2005 to 17,180 in 2007, up 84.7 percent.

During the two years after the launch of the pilot project of constructing “innovative enterprises”, the pilot enterprises prominently strengthen their construction of innovation capacity with the total number of research and development (R&D) personnel increasing from 174,600 in 2005 to 220,100 in 2007, up 26.4 percent. Fifty seven enterprises have established R&D organs such as state key laboratories, technology centers and project centers; a half of these enterprises have established joint laboratories with colleges and research institutes. These enterprises also possess an increasing number of independent IPRs with the number of applications of patent of invention rising from 9,300 in 2005 to 17,180 in 2007, up 84.7 percent; meanwhile, the number of software copyrights granted also increases from 638 to 4,371, an increase of 7-fold.

Pilot enterprises constantly increase their dependence on technological innovations with R&D investments growing dramatically. Statistics show that these enterprises’ R&D investments rise from 54.5 billion yuan in 2005 to 82.9 billion yuan in 2007, a growth of 52.1 percent, accounting for one fourth of total R&D investments of the whole society; the average R&D investments of the pilot enterprises account for 6.74 percent of their sales revenue, much higher than the average level of that of China’s large and medium-sized industrial enterprises in 2006, which is 0.77 percent.

In July 2006, Ministry of Science and Technology, State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council and All-China Federation of Trade Unions launch the pilot project of constructing “innovative enterprises” to encourage enterprises to strengthen their independent innovation capacity, improve their internal mechanisms conducive to independent innovation, formulate the correct technology innovation strategies and promote enterprises to be the main bodies of technology innovation. The three departments totally confirm 287 pilot enterprises in two batches.