The Research on the Patent Transfer of Universities of China Mainland

Abstract

China accounted for 98% of the total growth of global patent applications in 2016. The rapid growth has been arousing great controversies and doubts about Chinese current patent policies around the world. Chinese universities are making the second largest contribution to patent filing growth. However, a survey of top 10 universities in mainland China suggests that the university sector has not performed as well in patent use as it has in patent filings. This paper talked about the patent quality from purposes for filing patents of university inventors and analyze the non-market factors behind it including many preferential policies. By empirical study, some alienations of patent application were found that most inventors filed patent not for the commercial use but for other purposes such as for personal promotion in academic field, or for the project requirement and for meeting the needs of workload. It comes to the conclusion that the influence of the planned economy is fundamental reasons for the patent surge and the low transfer rate, also the ranking of the Ministry of Education and the preferential financial policies on patent application of Chinese universities play a key role for the low patent transfer. Finally, a few ways towards a better balance between patent quantity and quality are suggested from an institutional perspective.