Bonum Certa Men Certa

Mythology About Patents in the East

Related and recent: In Just a Few Years China Became the Eastern District of Texas

Watchers



Summary: Misconceptions (or deliberate propaganda) about patent policy in the east poison the debate and derail a serious, facts-based discussion about it

TECHRIGHTS is generally focused on the EPO and USPTO, not only because they account for the lion's share of capital but also because English is their official language and it's close to us (we're based in the UK, the servers are in the US, and many volunteers/community members are in the US).

"India generally recognises -- as many patent examiners do as well -- that patent quality is what matters and economic justification is needed for any patent."We sometimes look at smaller patent offices and also look eastwards. Over the weekend we wrote about IP Australia in relation to Grant Shoebridge's article; he and the firm he works for must be paying to repost it in more sites, basically lobbying for expansion of patent scope because IP Australia sought to improve productivity by narrowing the scope of patents.

Further north there are three major patent offices, all part of IP5: Japan's JPO, Korea's KIPO and China's SIPO (the "Five IP Offices" (IP5) are JPO/EPO/KIPO/SIPO/USPTO).

Benjamin Henrion has just (late on Monday) pointed out this paper titled "The Japanese Software Industry: What Went Wrong and What Can We Learn from It?".

"Software patents as metric fails to take in account the majority of software companies that do not have patents," Henrion correctly noted. I responded with:

Simplest way to rebut this BS 'paper'... Hypothesis: software patents good for software industry Falsified by: 1) India banned software patents 2) China allows them (one of the few countries) Which one is a software powerhouse?


We actually brought up this point less than one week ago. It needs to be repeated as much as possible because we continue to see lies repeated about China's patent policy against India's. They get it all backwards. Maybe it's intentional and therefore disingenuous. Less than a day ago (Watchtroll's Steve Brachmann on Monday and then IP Kat as well) patent maximalists carried on with their glorification of China [1, 2] in the context of so-called 'IP'. They try to make China some kind of 'role model', never mind if it's India that's thriving in the software sector, owing in part to the ban on software patents in India. An Indian patent maximalism blog has just published this "Weekly Patent News" post. Under "Indian Patent Statistics" it says:

A total of 1003 patent applications have been published in the 16th issue of the patent journal marking a modest increase of about 13.07% in the total number of patent applications published. Out of the 1003 applications, 55 applications account for early publications while 948 applications account for ordinary publications or publications occurring after the 18 month period. A total of 231 applications have been granted this week as opposed 176 grants in the previous.


Notice the absolute numbers. Also remember that India is not in IP5. India generally recognises -- as many patent examiners do as well -- that patent quality is what matters and economic justification is needed for any patent. Just throwing millions of low-quality patents into a repository (like China does with SIPO) isn't indicative of "success"; it's just a self-fulfilling prophecy that's hinged on lies like "patents are innovation" and "innovation depends on patents" (coming around full circle).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
 
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete
Links 26/10/2025: Microsoft Spies on Gamers, Open Transport Community Conference
Links for the day
Links 26/10/2025: LLM Slop / Plagiarism Programs Continue to Disappoint, CISA Layoffs Threaten Systems
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2025: Gemsync and Joining the Small Web
Links for the day
India.com a Click-baiting, SEO-Spamming, Slopfarming Heap
They do this almost every day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 25, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 25, 2025
Without XBox Consoles, XBox is No More, It's Just a Brand (More Rumours of Microsoft Ending XBox, Then Laying Off Lots of Staff)
All signs indicate that Microsoft wants to "exit" the XBox business (not brand), but it does not want to publicly admit this as it would alarm staff and shareholders