"In recent years, Chinese enterprises have been paying more and more attention to intellectual property protection, resulting in a rapid growth of patent applications. At the same time, those enterprises should also highlight the quality of their applications," said Wang Ningling, one of the partners of Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner LLP, in an interview by ChinaNews on November 6th.

Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner LLP is one of the largest law firms on intellectual property globally. Finnegan and Guangdong Intellectual Property Research and Development Center are jointly conducting seminars on U.S. patent systems in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Huizhou and Zhuhai from November 6th to 9th. Those seminars are designed to help electronic industries in China know more about intellectual property systems in the U.S. More than 400 large-scale and medium-sized enterprises in the industry have participated in the seminars.

The innovative capacities of Chinese enterprises have been greatly enhanced since China entered the World Trade Organization and its patent applications have grown from 200,000 in 2001 to 1,630,000 in 2012, eight times more than that of ten years ago. The proportion of enterprises' filings has increased from less than 2% in 2001 to 52% in 2012, demonstrating their dominant role in innovation. Some Chinese enterprises such as Huawei, ZTE, Haier and Sany have become leading players in international markets by actively implementing intellectual property strategies.

However, some experts pointed out that patent dispute is still a main obstacle for Chinese enterprises in carrying out “going-out” policy. Statistics show that from 2002 to the end of September this year, Chinese enterprises have been involved in about 140 cases of "Section 337 Investigation", 90% of which are related to patents. China has been the main target of this investigation in ten successive years.

Senior Lawyer Yin Qingyu stated that Chinese enterprises should play a more active role in the process of "going-out". They should further improve core technologies and file more high quality applications so that they could have more chances to win when patent disputes occur.

Another partner of Finnegan Patrick J Coyne suggested that Chinese enterprises should conduct adequate researches before entering a new market to know if a product has already been protected by intellectual property rights, thus avoiding disputes. In addition, enterprises should build a strong team of intellectual property talents to protect their patents from being stolen.