The Research on the Patent Transfer of Universities of China Mainland

Deli cheng

<International Journal of Law and Society>   January 29, 2019

Author
Deli Cheng, Associate Professor, Research Interests:Intellectual Property and Competition Law, Intellectual Property and Regional Economy

Keywords

Patent Surge, Patent Quality, Non-Market Factors, Machine Learning, Improvement and Suggestions

Brief Introduction

In this paper, the current situation of Chinese patent commercialization and the quality of patents have been reviewed. Patent quality is considered a major cause of unsatisfactory patent use. Most scholars consider the subsidy policy an important negative factor which leads to a patent surge both in university and enterprises in China. But they rarely give the reasons why these subsidy policies are formulated and enforced. The study began with the description of the status quo of the patent commercialization in China universities. Employing a questionnaire survey, we find several motives for which facultyninventors apply for patents. Only 14% of the inventors think the commercialization is most important for filing patents. Then the paper further analyzed why the faculty inventors would have skewed attitudes toward the patent application.

They are clear they don’t apply for some patents for commercialization which is the right purpose of patents. Three institutional factors, produced in planned economy, are presented, which is the fundamental reason for university patent surge. Some suggestions are put forth about how to change the policies from both institutional and mechanism perspective: (1) Change the thinking mode of planned economy. Several decades of planned economy imposed great influence on the Chinese administrative organizations in many ways. The leaders are used to make plans in all kind of life which sometimes go against the natural regularity. Patents embody the scientific development and develop gradually which is not suitable for plan. The government should realize it and change the planned thinking mode. (2) Modification of the University Assessment System. The assessment systems of government to universities, such as the Ministry of Education, should be changed. Indicators of patent commercial use such as licensing, implementation should receive more attention in the national education assessment system.