April 26, 2022, marks the 22nd World Intellectual Property Day. This year's festival focused on IP and Youth under the theme "IP and Youth: Innovating for the Future", and aims to learn how IP supports youth goals on a global scale, helps make youth ideas a reality, generates incomes, creates jobs and has a positive impact on the world around them.
The issue is not complicated. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the mutual achievements of intellectual property rights and young people have occurred particularly naturally and frequently, mainly because the country, enterprises and individuals have been able to witness the great changes brought about by the power of science and technology innovation in the times. In this context, enterprises that encourage scientific and technological innovation have become fragrant, driven by the realization of personal value, the young generation is eager for science and technology enterprises; on the other hand, the times are also creating young people, known as the most entrepreneurial, innovative and creative young generation has become the object of snare and training of science and technology enterprises.
It can be said that the "two-way rush" of intellectual property rights and youth should first be the resonance of innovation and creativity on both sides, followed by the innovation and creativity co-creation promoted by both sides, in which the two achieve mutual achievements, making newer and better solutions mushroom.
According to the data, as of 2021, China has 1.45 million science and technology enterprises, and a series of scientific and technological innovations carried out by these enterprises have not only penetrated into all aspects of people's lives, but also driven the rapid development of China's strength, and intellectual property protection has also ushered in a wider range of exploration and practice.
The number of patent applications in China exceeds that of the United States, and the pan-Internet industry has become the largest source of PCT applications
Intellectual property rights reflect the core competitiveness of the industry, and the number of patent applications is one of the important indicators of intellectual property rights. According to the world's patent application ranking published by wipo in February this year, In 2021, China applied for a total of 69,540 patents, ranking first in the world, an increase of 0.9% year-on-year; the United States is close behind with a total of 59,570, one of which is very consistent between China and the United States, that is, the first largest source of these patents is domestic science and technology enterprises.
In the United States, well-known enterprises such as Qualcomm, General Electric, Cisco, Intel and other well-known enterprises have a pivotal position in many segments. China also has a large number of strong technology companies, according to the detailed ranking published by WIPO, Huawei became the largest applicant in 2021 with 6952 published PCT applications, and a large number of technology Internet companies such as OPPO, BOE, Ping An Technology, ZTE, tencent and so on were on the list.
In terms of technology, computer technology accounted for the largest share of published PCT applications, accounting for 9.9% of the total, followed by digital communications, accounting for 9%, and both china and the United States continued to increase investment in the pan-Internet field.
Patent applications also see "Chinese Characteristics"
It can be seen that with policy support and huge R&D investment, the mainland's science and technology industry has made more and more remarkable achievements. It is worth pointing out that the patent applications of Chinese technology enterprises are also full of Chinese characteristics, which are mainly reflected in three aspects:
The first is to use the youth group as the backbone. The data shows that in recent years, with the steady growth of the total number of scientific and technological talents on the mainland, the structure of the mainland talent team has also been continuously optimized. A survey released by the Pulse Research Institute shows that mainland science and technology enterprises have gathered a large number of young and high-income groups, with an average age of only 20 or 30 years old, which is very "sunrise". According to public disclosures, the average age of Huawei and Alibaba employees is 31 years old, and Tencent is 29 years old. The average age of employees of the new generation of Internet companies is relatively lower, such as ByteDance is 27 years old. These young people born in millennials and even Generation Z are digital natives, growing up in an environment full of mobile terminals and network interconnections, with a "more digital" way of thinking, and are currently supporting the platform to continue to "emerge" in technological innovation and creativity.
Second, patents are mainly from artificial intelligence, data processing, and Internet-related fields. This can be seen from the explosive growth of the artificial intelligence industry in recent years, the data shows that in 2019, the annual number of global artificial intelligence-related patent applications exceeded 120,000, accounting for 72% of the total number of global applications; in 2021, this proportion is still as high as 52%, and the number of patent applications ranks first in the world. Most of these patents come from Internet technology companies involved in artificial intelligence, the reason behind it is not difficult to understand, in recent years, China's science and technology Internet companies have continued to exert efforts, cultivated a large number of artificial intelligence emerging application scenarios, Chinese enterprises on intellectual property protection has also never been higher, in the active layout of patent applications inexhaustible efforts.
Third, the market transformation is rapid. The World Intellectual Property Report 2022 points out that digitalization is a major new innovation change, it is changing today's industries by changing the object, type and process of innovation, and to achieve economic development, new technologies are being applied on a large scale. Indeed, thanks to the sound ICT infrastructure and developed Internet technology, the patents of Chinese companies have been rapidly translated into product applications, providing users with better technology and experience.
Taking OPPO, which ranks second in the list of Chinese enterprise patents, as an example, the first folding screen OPPO Find N released by it, that is, the use of advanced self-developed Seiko pseudo-vertebral hinge technology, has 125 patents, and is currently the folding screen mobile phone with the shallowest crease of the same type of product on the market, and the patent results are very impressive.
Tencent, which has a huge number of users around the world, has also performed well in continuously transforming the patent reserve layout into technological landing results. In order to bring a better product experience to the majority of users, Tencent has been working research and development technology and innovation, in order to continuously provide users with excellent terminal products through innovative technologies, and these terminal products all have eighteen-like patents.
In June last year, Tencent won the China Patent Gold Award, the highest award in China's intellectual property field, for a patent entitled "New Design Solution Technology to Support Million-Party Ultra-Large-scale Video Conferencing". The patent can effectively support the rapid expansion and iteration of Tencent Conference, provide ultra-low latency and super resistance under ultra-large scale, and ensure that all users in the super room of Tencent Conference can smoothly get on and off the microphone at any time, and experience the audio and video experience far beyond ordinary video conferencing and live microphone systems.
It is not difficult to find that C-end patents can play a role in optimizing user experience, compared with B-end patents focusing on improving efficiency and production capacity, which is especially reflected in medical treatment, and Tencent is an active practitioner in this field. Data show that from 2018 to 2021, a total of 84,000 digital medical related patents were applied worldwide, of which Tencent's patent application number ranked third in the world, and its medical AI patents involved in the direction of breast tumors, fundus lesions, colorectal tumors, lung nodules and lung cancer, brain tumors, cervical cancer, liver cancer, etc. The application of related patents in the direction of disease screening and diagnosis has greatly improved the efficiency and accuracy of examinations, reduced the workload of doctors, and allowed many patients to get more timely and appropriate treatment.
In addition, brush face authentication, payment, these actions that every individual is accustomed to now involve a lot of data computing, transmission and storage, more related to user privacy and capital security, the need for strong network security protection, and all of which require solid technical accumulation to support.
Based on intellectual property rights, science and technology enterprises and science and technology youth "beautiful resonance"
It is these powerful intellectual property accumulations that have built a solid technology moat for China's technology enterprises. When it comes to rivers, nature is inseparable from water, and for science and technology enterprises, scientific and technological youth is the water in it.
Why are young people around the world keen to choose technology companies to show their ambitions? First of all, because in scientific research, the platform can provide strong resources and technical support, and individual innovation and creation have a higher degree of freedom and cooperation. Taking Tencent as an example, it has the gene of focusing on strengthening open cooperation in all fields of intellectual property rights, and encourages young people to connect with the world. It is reported that Tencent has long provided training opportunities for international young talents to provide personalized international cooperation projects to help young talents accumulate experience and improve their capabilities.
Secondly, the salary level and welfare treatment also fully reflect the individual ability level and labor results. For example, in order to let more young people in science and technology participate in the creation, Tencent advocates "heavy rewards". At present, Tencent has established a special reward system to cash in the award money to the inventors and designers of patent applications, for employees, the reward is an affirmation of past achievements, but also the expectation of future achievements, which greatly mobilizes the enthusiasm of employees to innovate and invent.
The "empathy" of science and technology enterprises and scientific and technological youth in the goal and spirit is the essential reason for the two to achieve a two-way choice, among which the protection of intellectual property rights by science and technology enterprises strongly supports the innovation and entrepreneurship goals of scientific and technological youth, helping them to turn their ideas into reality. It is reported that Tencent has begun to establish a systematic and standardized intellectual property management model since its inception, and after more than 20 years of development, this model has also been continuously optimized and improved, which has effectively promoted the high-quality development of Tencent's intellectual property work in the creation, protection, management and operation.
It is worth pointing out that science and technology enterprises have also set an example in innovation and promoting the development of intellectual property rights, and young people in science and technology are also pioneers. Many domestic science and technology Internet companies have taken the initiative to create an innovation ecology, blur the boundaries of production, education and research, and strengthen cross-border communication and cooperation. For example, through the "Hornbill Bird" program, Tencent has taken the initiative to establish a linkage mechanism for advantageous resources of enterprises, universities and scientific research institutions, and has worked together to create more original and high-value intellectual property rights. The same is true for intellectual property operations, tencent continues to carry out intellectual property operations based on the whole process of innovation and the collaboration of production, education and research, so as to improve the level of intellectual property assessment and intellectual property financial service capabilities, so that young people can have great potential in the construction of intellectual property operation service system and intellectual property support.
Therefore, based on intellectual property rights, global technology companies are "beautifully resonating" with young people in science and technology. Facts have fully proved that when an enterprise has created a good environment for attaching importance to intellectual property rights, its attractiveness to scientific and technological youth will also grow exponentially, because the efforts made by enterprises in intellectual property rights provide the best innovative nourishment for scientific and technological youth, attract more and more high-quality scientific and technological youth to "realize their dreams", and eventually feed back the enterprise itself. Taking Tencent as an example, multiple measures have enabled it to achieve rich results in intellectual property rights, and in 2021 alone, Tencent applied for 511 patents, ranking first in BAT.
"The creativity and curiosity of young people are constantly flowing, the wisdom and courage of young people are naturally suitable for meeting the challenges of innovation, and the intellectual property system, as a legal guarantee to stimulate innovation, provides an inexhaustible driving force for young people to make breakthroughs and bold innovations." This is the case with an editorial in the Intellectual Property Newspaper on the 22nd World Intellectual Property Day.
Yes, scientific and technological youth and intellectual property rights are "two-way", and scientific and technological youth and the science and technology enterprises that attach the greatest importance to innovation are "beautiful resonance". Looking to the future, young people will continue to move forward in this era of innovation, towards the brightest spring.