by Xiong Weisheng

BEIJING, Oct 24 (China Economic Net) - China's technology sector is rapidly evolving, fueled by a strategic focus on patent-heavy industries that form a core pillar of the nation’s economy. A recent report from China’s top intellectual property regulator highlights that China’s patent-intensive industries gathered approximately 50% of the enterprise R&D investments across the country, and contributed 12.71% to its GDP.

In 2022, the added value of patent-intensive industries amounted to 15.32 trillion yuan in China, representing an average annual growth of 9.36% between 2018 and 2022, the report showed. These industries are characterised by substantial R&D investment and a focus on patent creation, covering the seven sectors of information and communication technology (ICT) manufacturing, ICT services, advanced equipment production, new materials production, pharmaceuticals, environmental protection, and R&D, design, and technology services.

Notably, ICT services and ICT manufacturing, as representatives of emerging industries, have shown the fastest growth rates, with average annual increases of 14.86% and 10.23% respectively between 2018 and 2022, the data indicated.

Internal R&D spending in the patent-heavy industries also increased, reaching 1.14 trillion yuan in 2022 — a rise of 11.28% from the previous year. The investment intensity – the ratio of internal R&D spending to business revenue – reached 2.46%, up 0.11% from the previous year and 0.40% over 2018, and 2.23 times that of non-patent-intensive industries, as per the report.

In 2022, patent-heavy industries provided employment for over 49 million people, an increase of more than 460,000 jobs over the previous year, accounting for 6.7% of the total workforce, the report revealed. The jobs concentrate on new equipment production, ICT production, and ICT service.

China's success in 5G is a telling example of the impact of patent-intensive industries. According to a 2024 research report on global 5G standard essential patents (SEPs) by China’s top IP regulator, Chinese companies dominated the global 5G landscape, with five of the top ten holders of 5G patent families originating from China, led by Huawei. A recent report by LexisNexis, a leading U.S. data analytics company, showed that Huawei leads the race for WiFi 4, 5, and 6 patents.

Home to 26 of the top 100 global technology innovation clusters and ranking 11th globally in terms of innovation, the country is poised to innovate and make strides in key patent-heavy sectors.