CNIPA Touts Patent Commercialization and Finance Activity at Universities

On August 3, 2022, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) published a press release (in English also) titled, “Patent Commercialization Activities at Universities Sky Rocket in Past Decade.”  The press release points to a significant increase in grant rate of patents to Chinese universities as well as licensing activity.  Notably, the press release states that the monetary value went up from 820 million Yuan to over 8.8 billion Yuan.  The press release discusses a patent licensing program amongst Chinese universities and with SMEs that appears to mandate publishing licensing agreements.  Professor Mark Allen Cohen, a distinguished fellow, lecturer and director of the Asia IP Project at UC Berkeley Law, has an excellent post on interpreting China's patent data, here.  The press release states:

Under the circular, to promote stable implementation and efficient operation, CNIPA has convened special sessions to deploy implementation of patent open licensing and has allocated two detailed schemes to its own departments and local IP authorities respectively, with an aim to mobilize over 100 colleges to participate a pilot program and eventually involve over 1,000 patents as of the end of 2022, and endeavour to improve the efficiency of patent commercialization. Currently, 13 provinces have issued accompanying plans for the pilot program, six of which have looped in 77 universities to cull and publish open licenses for 3,375 patents that were pushed to 19,000 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with matching need, leading to conclusion of 587 licensing agreements.

"Next, CNIPA will publish the recorded information of the concluded patent license agreements and formulate a suggested national standard on patent evaluation, giving instructions on pricing of open licensing and stimulate both the suppliers-universities and research institutes and the buyers -SMEs for a better chance of materializing the innovation findings," added the same principal.

The press release also discusses its commercialization program:

This commercialization program was launched jointly by the Ministry of Finance and CNIPA in March 2021, which inspires commercialization of college-developed patents, educates universities to polish their mechanisms in allocation of IP-generated profits; with support from University IP and technology transfer centers, Industrial IP operation centers intensively announces supplying information of patent related technologies; makes patent/technology connection between universities and state-owned enterprises and SMEs to improves their practical ability in patent commercialization. Furthermore, the Ministry of Finance and CNIPA would aid in building a green channel in the provinces that have implemented this program, about processing related patent transfer, licensing and pledging for SMEs. Patent transfer/licensing involving universities/research institutes happened 27,000 times in 2021, up 33% year-on-year, twice faster than the growth rate of all patent transfer/licensing activities while 24,000 times or 89% out of the 27,000 times were transactions made with SMEs.

EPO Releases Annual Report on 2017 Patent Activity: Interesting Stats

The EPO has released its annual report for 2017 patenting activity.  Notably, patenting and patent filings are trending up at 3.9% and 4.4% respectively.  In the electrical engineering field, patenting is up in the audio visual space by 10.6% and semiconductors by 13.5%.  In instruments, patenting is up in optics by 15.6% and analysis of biological materials by 12.5%.  In chemistry, biotechnology is up 14.5%, but micro-structural and nanotechnology is down by 12.6%.  Interestingly, US nationals as first inventor lead patent applications in the EPO with a 26% share.  The EU member state inventors as a whole have more nationals as first inventor (47% total).  However, Germany, the leader in the EU, has a 15% share.  Japan has 13%, and China has 5%.  The top three technical fields in patent applications are 1) medical technology; 2) digital communication; and 3) computer technology.  The top ten applicant companies are: 1) Huawei (China); 2) Siemens (EU); 3) LG (Korea); 4) Samsung (Korea); 5) Qualcomm (US); 6) Royal Phillips (EU); 7) United Technologies (US); 8) Intel (US); 9) Robert Bosch (EU); and 10) Ericsson (EU).  Sixty-nine percent of the total applicants are large entities.  Twenty-four percent are SMEs/individual inventors.  Seven percent were universities/public research.  Interestingly, SMEs/individual inventors share is down from 28% in 2016.  Universities/public research is up 1 percentage point from 2016. 

University Endowment Size and Patenting

The National Association of Colleges and University Business Officers has released its report concerning U.S. University Endowment Size in 2016.  The top 10 in endowment size, include: 1) Harvard ($34,541,893,000); 2) Yale ($25,408,600,000); 3) University of Texas System ($24,203,213,000); 4) Stanford ($22,398,130,000); 5) Princeton ($22,152,580,000); 6) MIT ($13,181,515,000); 7) University of Pennsylvania ($10,715,364,000); 8) Texas A&M University System ($10,539,526,000); 9) University of Michigan ($9,743,461,000); and 10) Northwestern ($9,648,497,000).  I recently reported on top universities for patenting in the U.S. in 2016. The top 10 of the list includes: 1) The Regents of the University of California: 505 patents; 2) MIT: 278; 3) Stanford: 244; 4) Cal Tech: 201; 5) Tsinghua University/Graduate School at Shenzen: 181; 6) Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation: 168; 7) John Hopkins: 167; 8) University of Texas: 162; 9) University of Michigan: 142; and 10) Columbia University: 118. There is some overlap on the list, including, MIT, Stanford, University of Texas and University of Michigan.  Interestingly, the endowment of Cal Tech is ranked at 39^th at $2,106,724,000 and the University of Wisconsin is at 23^rd at $2,419,161,000.  Additionally, universities in the University of California System have separate endowments which appear to be different from the overarching University of California endowment, which is 13^th in endowment size at $8,341,072,000. 

EMW Law Firm Releases Information on Fintech Patenting

The EMW Law Firm has released some information concerning Fintech patenting trends.  EMW states:

The number of ‘fintech patents’ filed worldwide is continuing to rise sharply, reaching 9,545 in 2016*, up 6% from 9,045 filed the year before in 2015 and up 49% from 6,399 filed five years ago in 2011[.]

“Fintech patents” are defined by EMW as:  “Patents relating to banking, exchanges, investment, insurance, payment architecture and calculation of taxation, filed with the World Intellectual Property Organisation.”  For more information, please see EMW’s blog post, here.  Corporate Counsel also discusses EMW’s blog post, here.  The Corporate Counsel article notes the US lead over China in Fintech patenting.  I am still holding out hope for a publicly available report on the IP landscape for Fintech. 

Biotech Hopping at Wall Street and Biotech Patenting on an Upswing--More Patenting to Come?

The Wall Street Journal reports that there have been 16 biotech IPOs (it is unclear what is defined as biotech) since the beginning of this year raising over $1.1 billion.  (for more on venture capital backed IPOs generally see here)  To put that in context, in 2004 there were 25 IPOs bringing in close to $1.17 billion.  In the last ten years, at this point, this year would be tied for the second best year and the future looks bright for more biotech IPOs.  The Wall Street Journal also speculates that the rise in IPOs along with their general success is attributable to R&D and clinical trial successes.  For example, the article states that: “Last year, the Food and Drug Administration approved 39 new drugs, according to the agency, a figure not reached since 1997. This year, the agency has approved 13 new drugs.”  With the supposed dried up pipeline of Big Pharma, this is welcome news.  Also, the surge in IPOs with more funding may mean more money for patenting efforts in the biotech space with more investors looking to biotech.

On the patenting side, Nature Biotechnology’s Bioentreprenuer reports on statistics on biotech patenting provided by IP Checkups.  It is also unclear what is defined as “biotech,” but the numbers are interesting.  There is a general upswing in biotech patents granted since 2008 from 657 to 850 in 2012 in the United States.  Interestingly, the article also notes the average number of biotech patents by university.  (it is unclear whether these numbers are for granted patents or for patent applications—or full applications or provisional--but it is more likely applications or some of the other numbers don't add up).  If you add up the average number of patents per year between 2008 and 2012 for U.S. universities listed (not all U.S. universities apparently), you get around 880 patents in the United States per year.  The article also has the numbers for patenting at the EPO.  The patenting in the United States is quite a bit higher than the patenting at the EPO.  This could be, in part, because of cost.  Any opinions on the data?