China Widens Lead Over US in AI Patents After Beijing Tech Drive

China is increasing its lead over the US in AI patent filings, underscoring the Asian nation's determination to shape and influence a technology that could have broad implications for the world's richest economies. From a report: Chinese institutions applied for 29,853 AI-related patents in 2022, climbing from 29,000 the year prior, according to data that the World Intellectual Property Organization provided to Bloomberg News. That's almost 80% more than US filings, which shrank 5.5%. Overall, China accounted for more than 40% of global AI applications over the past year, the data from the United Nations-affiliated agency showed. Japan and South Korea rounded out the 2022 leaders, with a combined 16,700 applications. The numbers illustrate how Beijing has pushed Chinese companies and agencies to gain an edge in areas such as chipmaking, space exploration and military sciences. More recently, President Xi Jinping has ordered the nation to accelerate fundamental research in response to US efforts to curtail its access to advanced technologies. That's triggered a flood of investment by Chinese companies in AI and quantum computing.

number of patents? how many as BS patents?

[Joe_Dragon]

number of patents? how many as BS patents?

Re:number of patents? how many as BS patents?

[Tablizer]

Most patents are BS, that's redundant. The patent system should be tossed, at least for sotware. The ratio of BS & wasteful busywork to true innovation is Yuuuge. It's main de-facto purpose is for big co's to win court wars by overwhelming little guys, who don't have a dedicated patent legal team who know how to surf the fucked up system.

Riddem!

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[Tablizer]

> The patent system should be tossed, at least for sotware.

Chrome's spell-checker occasionally lags for some reason. (I know, don't use Chrome, but sometimes I don't have a choice for reasons I won't go into.)

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[Retired Chemist]

The problem is not so much patents, as the broken system for approving them. In the US patent examiners are expected to examine far more patents than they can reasonably be expected to study carefully and there is no system to ensure that the examiner actually knows anything about the field. Frankly this is a case where AI could probably do a better job. All the examiner seems to do is select some keywords for a keyword search on the patent literature and quote the results regardless of relevance. If th

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[Tablizer]

But sufficiently qualified examiners would make the filing process much more expensive, favoring big co's even more.

> in a court system that also does not have any technical knowledge.

Sufficient technical experts and specialists are just not going to come cheap. Some kind of tech jury system perhaps should be set up, but either they are forced into service via conscription, or you pay them lots, bringing us back to the expensive filing problem.

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[tlhIngan]

Most patents are BS, that's redundant. The patent system should be tossed, at least for sotware. The ratio of BS & wasteful busywork to true innovation is Yuuuge. It's main de-facto purpose is for big co's to win court wars by overwhelming little guys, who don't have a dedicated patent legal team who know how to surf the fucked up system.

You're just saying the same stuff everyone's been saying for 200 years now.

Yes, the patent system has basically been broken since the beginning. Back in the 19th centur

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[xack]

Like how the media industry keeps making new codecs and techniques to keep digital video patented. Learnt it from the drug industry. Computers have been around long enough now that there should be prior art for every possible algorithm.

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[AmiMoJo]

Does it matter? Most patents only exist to provide a patent portfolio to trade, or to extract revenue from other companies.

How to beat China

[OrangeTide]

China has turned capitalism on its head. Instead of an economic system the uses legal code to enable investors to join together and invest in new endeavors. China has one party that controls all the money and all the laws and operates a centrally planned economic system. Any focus they choose is nearly unbeatable by the rest of the world, if China can hold their attention long enough on it. Breaking their focus is possible if there is some doubt as to their dominate position. The most straight forward way t

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[Thijson]

China's current rule can be compared to Mao Zedong's era. During that era they wanted to become the world's largest producer of iron. To achieve that, every school had a smelter in the back. People would be melting their cookware, and anything else they could found. It worked, but at what cost? My point is that the centrally planned economy frequently has these mandates. The quality of the results is probably lacking.

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[OrangeTide]

The Soviet Union lost because they focused their efforts on industrialization and failed to anticipate the role of global communication technology. It was a very good example of a centrally planned economy focused on the past and present and not preparing itself for an every changing future.

China has many forward looking initiatives. And these initiatives are the very topic of this article. China is not comparable to the Soviet Union in this instance.

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[account_deleted]

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good time to mention Muslim XinJiang!

[oumuamua]

China often gets dinged for its response to the Uyghur separatists killing 31 people in Kunming, also called China's 911 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] The 'genocide' classification was due to forced use of birth control (and at the time the 2 child policy was still in place), China did not actually kill any Uyghurs except for isolated incidents. The 'reeducation work camps' have seemed to work, they have had no more terrorist attacks.
Already, China's 911 response is looking restrained and level head

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[account_deleted]

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[oumuamua]

Got it; Israel's response to the the terror attack is much better that what China did. Better to kill them every 2-4 years than try to re-educate them.

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[account_deleted]

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Solar panel win

[Tablizer]

China's subsidies on solar panels worked to yank the market from the Yankees. But part of that is merely having lower labor costs in China, so subsidizing panels just gets them to the inevitable faster.

Many believe China plays currency games to keep their labor artificially cheap, but so far they haven't been caught red handed (no pun intended).

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[AmiMoJo]

China isn't a closed society. Anyone can apply for a passport and go where they like, visa permitting. Similarly you can easily get a visa to visit China. In fact when I applied for some I made a mistake on the form, and they sent it back with a note about what to fix and didn't charge me. Compared to the UK's visitor visa system, which is designed to be absolute hell, it was extremely easy and open. And cheap.

China doesn't do Soviet/communist style central planning. It's more like the EU, where it enforces

China respect patents?

[GregMmm]

When did that happen?

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[Surak_Prime]

They respect them as tools against the countries that honor them, and against companies in those jurisdictions.

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[AmiMoJo]

For quite some time now, in fact. Copyright too - a Chinese court recently enforced the GPL, in one of the strongest acknowledgements of its validity anywhere in the world.

Chinese companies make a lot of money from patents. Huawei is a good example, it has many of the key 5G patents and benefits from a mixture of cross-licencing (so Huawei can use Western patents for free) and being paid fees to use its technology that is now part of international standards.

Abolish patents

[loonycyborg]

US history with IP rights shows that they support them only for own benefit. Like Hollywood's use of past lack of local copyright law while it existed in Europe to get a jumpstart. Maybe when China got better at making patents US will be open to idea of abolishing them? One can only hope.

a case of quantity over quality

[yanyan]

The government actually pays organizations to file patents, that's why there are so many.

Re: a case of quantity over quality

[BytePusher]

I'm curious how that is different than the grant system in the academic system in the US? The US government is always funding research and development, but the patents go to the parent organization whether its a school or a company.

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[sixsixtysix]

This is what's fucked up. The patents should become public if any public money is used in the R&D.

Why bother

[RitchCraft]

Why bother honoring their patents? It's not like they honor others'.

imaginary property

[nicubunu]

How long before China and USA decide to reciprocally invalidate each other's patents?