How China is Changing the Global Patent System (2020)

Director Robert Greene Sterne will be a speaker in the panel titled “How China is Changing the Global Patent System” during IPWatchdog Virtual CON2020. His panel will occur on Wednesday, September 30, 2020 at 12:45 p.m. EDT.

Panel Description

The massive volume of filings at the Chinese Patent Office exceeds the filings of the next four most active patent offices combined. This filing surge in China signals a rapid shift to China as the center for the leading-edge technologies that will enable the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The massive prior art collection being built by the Chinese Patent Office comes at the same time the Chinese are investing in infrastructure and loans to the many countries along European and African trade routes. The Chinese prior art collection seems poised to dominate decisions on patentability as a natural outgrowth of this dissemination of technological information throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.

Meanwhile, China has adopted an expansive definition of what constitutes patent-eligible subject matter, which may even be broader than the definitions in the EPO, JPO, and KIPO, and certainly broader than definitions in the US.

In addition to taking as many questions as possible, we will specifically address:

• How Chinese filings constitute a massive trove of global prior art, which by sheer numbers will dominate the global prior art library within a few years.
• How the Chinese government has been incentivizing and subsidizing patent filing and patent fees.
• Strategies for confronting the language barrier now so as to not be left in the dark with respect to the new global prior art landscape.