Co-operative research centres such as the AMCRC exist fundamentally to ensure the birth of new IP, products and processes that earn significant profits. We can learn a lot from China’s example. China has become the third-largest patent producer in the world after the US and Japan and is set to surpass the US and Japan in 2011. From 2003 to 2007, China’s GD P grew at an average annual rate of 9.75%. At the same time, Chinese invention patent applications grew at an average of 28.4% per cent.
Most of these patents were in the areas of digital computers, information technology, electrical devices and analysis, audio-visual technology, consumer goods and equipment, chemical engineering, telephone and data transmission systems and agriculture and food. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao has reportedly said: “Core technology cannot be bought. Only by strong capacity of science and technological innovation, and by obtaining our own IP rights, can we promote competitiveness and…win respect in the international society.”
The Chinese government has supported this trend through a massive R&D budget which it plans to have at 2.5% of GDP by 2020, tax concessions and extensive backing from the universities, scientific research institutions and colleges. The Chinese academic sector contributes a significantly higher proportion of patent applications to the national total compared to many other countries: 16% compared to 1% in Japan, 4% in the US, and 2% in Korea.
This is where the AMCRC, with its close linkages to universities and research institutions, can play a key role in creating new IP for Australia. In our innovation assessment tool, we look at the quality of the IP. It’s not just about lodging patents but about patents that have high quality. Our innovation assessment tool for SMEs looks at areas like world patentability, the amount of patent activity in the field, whether the patent will pre-empt the market and whether there are competing technologies.
Our role is to create strong IP, not just lodging patents for the sake of it, something the Chinese are now doing very well. It’s all about the birth of new products, new processes that create strong profits in the future. We have a lot to learn from China and the AMCRC with its extensive linkages is well positioned for that.
