Technology licensing in China

Abstract

We explore the landscape of technology licensing among Chinese entities in the period 2000-12, using a unique database on technological licensing from the State Intellectual Property Office of China. We find that: first, among Chinese licensee organizations, firms have dominated in terms of the number of licensed technologies; second, the geographical distribution of licensed technologies among the provinces has gradually reached a new quantitative balance; third, utility models are the most popular technologies to be licensed and the majority of technology licensing in China has been between Chinese entities, and most transactions have been local within provinces; and finally, Chinese firms have gradually in-licensed newer and newer technologies, but the technologies in-licensed from foreign sources are by no means state-ofthe-art. We make several suggestions for innovation policy-making and for directions for future research.