Patents
China in 2011 became the nation with highest amount of filled patent applications. However, this reflects in part that the government gives companies incentives for filing patent applications regardless of if eventually granted. The percentage of patents applications in China filed by Chinese companies rose from from less than 52% in 2006 to nearly 73% in 2010. World Intellectual Property Office data shows that Chinese companies have also become more important regarding patents overseas with Chinese companies now being on place two and four regarding number of patent applications filed by individual companies. China aims to transform the economy from "Made in China" to "Designed in China" and from contract manufacturing to having brand name companies with resulting improved profit margins.
The relative proportion of granted patents is lower with China being behind Japan and the United States when measuring the number of granted patents at the patent offices of the US, Japan, the EU, South Korea, and China (who together administer about 75% of the world's patents). However, China is now granted about twice as many patents as South Korea or the EU while five years ago China was granted about the same amount as each of these regions.
Read more about this topic: Science And Technology In The People's Republic Of China