China Becoming Patent Giant

According to WIPO, the UN's intellectual property agency, China has become the third largest filer for patents behind the US and Japan, as the BBC reported. China has for some years become the manufacturer of first resort for many companies around the world. But that's a low profit type of business. The country is moving up market, so to speak:

China knows it cannot bet its future economic success on low wages alone. Other countries are already cheaper.

I can remember a few years ago speaking to an executive of a global consumer electronics company who was working in China. He said that people had no idea how quickly the country had advanced and exactly what was going on there, that to see it for yourself was a stunning experience. It still makes me wonder how many businesses and countries still write off China as a source of cheap labor and manufacturing, where there is little interest in intellectual property and where the chief capability of interest is copying what has already been done by another. How long will it be before the west faces China as a powerful competitor on all levels? Look how long it took to recognize - not just intellectually, but emotionally - Japan and then South Korea. We may all be in for a rude awakening.