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The People’s Republic of China has long craved advanced technologies, and has undertaken an overwhelming number of changes in its intellectual property laws in order to foster domestic innovation and to encourage foreign investment. China implemented its first patent law in 1985. However, implementation and enforcement of this law and its amendments have been difficult, such that many foreign firms are reluctant to invest in Chinese markets. This paper describes the many changes that have been made to Chinese patent laws, and then illustrates patent activity in China as those changes have been implemented. Managerial issues are discussed in detail.

Since 2015, China has made efforts to reform its intellectual property rights (IPR) system to better protect and stimulate innovation. These reforms are a result of the demand for more stringent intellectual property (IP) protection from China’s domestic, innovative industries and a measure to ease the pressure exerted by its foreign trading partners, particularly against the background of the US-China trade dispute that started at the beginning of 2018. This paper summarizes these reforms and their implications.

This paper combines a variety of sources, including academic articles, government websites, news reports, industry surveys and expert opinions, to offer insights in China’s IPR system and its recent reforms.

This paper summarizes and discusses (1) the state’s law amendments, including the 2015 amendment of the “Law on Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements”, the second amendment of the “Anti-Unfair Competition Law” with regard to trade secret protection, the fourth amendment of the “Patent Law”, and the legislations and regulations addressing the criticisms of the US administration over China’s so-called “forced” technology transfer policies; (2) the establishment of the specialized IP courts and tribunals since 2014; (3) the restructuring of the State IP Office; and (4) the issuing of an “Outline for Building an IPR Powerhouse (2021–2035)”.

This paper highlights China’s efforts to make its IPR system stronger and more just. It also discusses international observers’ reactions and pinpoints specific areas for further improvement.

This study aims to present a timely description of the experience and intentions of EU firms regarding patent licensing and/or selling to China in a new era, where EU firms are taking a more open approach toward innovation and the Chinese institutional environment has been recently changed.

The timing of this study provides opportunities to observe up‐to‐date perceptions of EU firms regarding their intentions and concerns about patent transactions to China right after the new Chinese Patent Law took effect in 2009. Firms from 12 European countries in various industries were surveyed through an online questionnaire.

The paper finds that large and small EU firms are different regarding the openness of innovation measured by patent transactions; for those EU firms that are not interested in licensing or selling patents, most of them are not employing an open innovation model and IP infringement is still the primary concern. EU firms are most interested in selling obsolete technologies and licensing state‐of‐art technologies to China.

Owing to the small sample size, it is difficult to identify the differences in strategies and concerns across industries in the EU and to observe and statistically present the relationships between variables.

This study renders practical guidance for both EU and Chinese firms that are already engaged in or will be interested in patent trade in the future.

The timing of the research and the uniqueness of data ensure the originality of this paper, which contributes to the open innovation literature by addressing several important issues in international technology transfer to China.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive overview of green innovation (GI) in China, which is carried out by reviewing the evolution of GI from 2000 to 2019, and the main type of technology, actors and localizations. When appropriate, GI is compared to non-GI.

The study uses patent data from the European Patent Office database (PATSTAT); these data are processed to map trends and identify the main contributors to GI and the location of such innovation. The findings are then discussed and complemented with academic literature.

Key findings reveal an increasing divergence between GI and nongreen innovation after the 2008 crisis. It is also observed that solar energy appears to be the main component of GI in China, with a shift from photovoltaic thermal energy to solar photovoltaic energy after 2008. Other areas, such as waste management, greenhouse gases capture and climate change adaptation, are less innovative. Companies play an essential role in the development of all types of innovation. In terms of location, green patents are mainly filed in China’s three main megacities. The study also highlights the significant role of the Chinese state, which led policies shaping the trajectories and forms of GI.

This study expands knowledge on GI in China, highlighting its main specificities and the role of key actors. It provides to the reader a comprehensive picture of China’s green policies and innovation realities. The results can therefore be used to improve the understanding of GI evolution in China and facilitate the formulation of new research questions.

Globalization should provide firms with an opportunity to leverage their know-how and reputation across countries to create value. However, it remains challenging for them to actually capture that value using traditional Intellectual Property (IP) tools. In this paper, we document the strong growth in patents, trademarks, and industrial designs used by firms to protect their IP globally. We then show that IP protection remains fragmented; the quality of IP applications might be questionable; and developing a comprehensive IP footprint worldwide is very costly. Growing numbers of applications are causing backlogs and delays in numerous Patent and Trademarks Offices and litigation over IP rights is expensive, with an uncertain outcome. Moreover, local governments can succeed in transferring value to local firms and influencing global market positions by using IP laws and other regulations. In essence, the analysis shows a global IP environment that leaves much to be desired. Despite these challenges, there are successful strategies to capture value from know-how and reputation by leveraging an array of IP tools. These strategies have important implications for management practice, as we discuss in our concluding section. Global companies will need to organize cross-functional value capture teams focused on appropriating value from their know-how and reputation by combining different institutional, market, and nonmarket tools, depending on the institutional and business environment in a particular region.

In this talk, I propose to cover two areas of intellectual property. These are copyright and patents. I will examine both of these topics in regard to the provision of scientific and technical information and the development of a dynamic and growing electronic information industry. For I believe that any country that plans to have a healthy information industry requires strong and rigorously enforced patent laws, and strong and rigorously enforced copyright laws.

Increased globalization of the world's economies, along with accelerated technological changes are transforming research and development (R&D) activities around the world. The purpose of this paper is to study the technology development in China, particularly in the light of the globalization of R&D activities.

The study is based on a detailed analysis of all US patents granted between 1979 and 2007 in which at least one inventor was a resident of China. US patents have been used as a surrogate measure of technology development and a patent developed with a resident Chinese inventor has been assumed to have been developed in China.

The paper identifies four phases of technical development in China: growth rate of patenting, extent of inventor collaboration, ownership pattern, concentration on technology trajectory and changing role of MNCs characterize each phase. While along the relatively new electrical and ICT technology trajectories, Chinese entities have benefited from the pioneering lead of foreign entities, along the traditional mechanical and chemical trajectories, foreign entities have followed the early work of Chinese entities.

Limitations of the study include the validity of using US patents as the sole measure of technology development. Other measures of technology development may be necessary to validate the findings reported here.

The study provides a rich source of information about different aspects of technology development in China and the challenges it faces in its internationalization.

The identification of four distinct phases have highlighted the pioneering role of foreign entities in opening up some technology trajectories as well as the increasing maturity and competence of all‐Chinese researcher teams.