Are Chinese politics a threat to the patent system?

© 2021 EPFL / Alain Herzog. Portrait of EPFL researcher Gaétan de Rassenfosse. Researchers show that foreign companies are less likely to have their patent applications granted in China than their Chinese counterparts. This discrimination occurs in technologies of strategic importance to the Chinese government: the telecommunication and biotech industries. With an investment agreement between China and the European Union awaiting to be ratified by the European Parliament, European companies are hoping to open markets in China without being forced to share technology with their Chinese counterparts. The agreement comes at a time with marked trade tensions with China. There is rising technology protectionism between the United-States, Europe, and China. Cases of industrial espionage conducted by Chinese university students in the UK are suspected by the UK's security service MI5 and government officials. Meanwhile, the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has recently set up its headquarters in St-Sulpice, 2 km away from EPFL's campus, raising interest but also suspicions about its technological motives. Discrimination against foreigners by the patent office in China The US International Trade Commission states in a 2010 report that ".. some non-Chinese firms reportedly find it more difficult to obtain patents in sectors that the Chinese government considers of strategic importance." Eager to move away from anecdotal evidence to a fact-based analysis of this heated debate, EPFL researchers Gaétan de Rassenfosse and Emilio Raiteri (who has since moved at TU Eindhoven) decided to quantify how many patents are granted in China, to locals and foreigners. Do the allegations of discrimination hold when examining the data carefully?