China Intellectual Property Index Report 2012
On June 20th, “China Intellectual Property Index Report 2012″ (“Report”) was released in Beijing by a special task group consisting of Chinese and foreign scholars and experts in intellectual property, economy and law. The report is designed to provide data-backed evidence on the correlation between intellectual property development and economic growth. The report seeks to make recommendations to policymakers on the strength of statistics and in-depth analysis on the correlation between intellectual property and economic competitiveness.
Intellectual property comprehensive strength denotes the competence of an area in intellectual property creation, utilization, protection and administration, and its index contains several IP factors (including output level, liquidity level, overall performance and creative potential) which reflect the environment, basic condition, contemporary situation and potential of innovations in a region for a certain period.
According to the index, a total of 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government (excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) are graded according to their IP competence. The top three are Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong, followed by Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Tianjin, Liaoning, Fujian and Chongqing.
Compared to last year, the top five remain the same, while Liaoning climbs from the 9th to the 8th and Fujian slips from the 8th to the 9th. Chongqing replaces Hunan at 10.
In addition, eastern developed areas show an overwhelming advantage over other provinces in the country. Of the top 10, only Chongqing is located in the western region, confirming that the ranking of a given region in the index is closely associated with its economic strength. An example of this can be seen through more advanced regions such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, which are ranked at the top of the list, while less developed areas such as Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and Tibet tend to fall to the bottom.
Among all the provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities), Shaanxi and Hainan make the greatest progress by rising from the 16th to the 12th and from the 23rd to the 19th,respectively, while Jilin and Heilongjiang drop by three spots, from the 18th to the 21st and the 19th to the 22nd, respectively. Fluctuation in the rankings of mid-tier provinces tended to be more dynamic, whereas higher and lower provinces tended to be more static.
Furthermore, cultural development has had increasing impact on intellectual property development. The analyses on culture progress with indicators including the proportion of annual expenses by local families on culture products are incorporated into the index. This year, the index included several new indicators relating to cultural investment, output level of academies and research institutions, the ratio between trade revenues and PCT applications, as well as IP services.