To Patent or Not to Patent: Case of the Chinese Industry

Objectives: This study, on the subject of China’s electrical and electronic industries which are making much investment in R&D, aims to grasp why they patent or don’t patent the output of R&D. Methods/Statistical Analysis: This study drew “to patent” and “not to patent” factors through specialist Delphi with factors drawn from foregoing studies. With them it proceeded with direct or online survey on the subject of electrical and electronic industries in China. Finally, importance was calculated by finding means and standard deviations from collected factors. Findings: This study aims to look at the purposes of applying or not applying for patent presented by foregoing studies and conduct empirical analysis on Chinese enterprises. It was the order of performance index, preventing patent infringement suit, license profit, preventing imitation and blocking competitor’s activity in the order. It was in the order of maintaining secrecy, patent maintenance cost, making corporate information public, patent application cost, easy invention and difficulty in proving a new invention. Difference between this study and foregoing studies lies in that this study made study on the subject of China’s electric and electronic industry but foregoing studies made survey on Korean enterprises. A small number of samples for metrics seem to have caused such difference. Improvements/Applications: This study’s suggestion is that it can be used by Chinese enterprises at the time of setting up strategic intellectual property rights from R&D stage; Practitioners could use this study for guideline in establishing each company’s intellectual property right strategy.