How China Went From Clean Energy Copycat to Global Innovator

In 2000, Chinese applicants filed 18 clean energy patents that analysts said were internationally competitive.

- Max Bearak and Mira Rojanasakul

In 2022, Chinese applicants filed more than 5,000.

Over two decades, China has leapt ahead of other countries, churning out innovative designs for the energy mix of the future: solar and wind power, batteries and electric cars.

Accused for years of copying the technologies of other countries, China now dominates the renewable energy landscape not just in terms of patent filings and research papers, but also in what analysts say are major contributions that will help to move the world away from fossil fuels.

"It may sound simplistic, but the ultimate indicator of patent quality is how much money a company or institution has spent on protecting its application, including by filing it in many countries," said Mr Yann Meniere, chief economist at the European Patent Office, which shared the most robust data available on trends in competitive patent filings with The New York Times. "Purely based on that, we can see how China has gone from being an imitator to an innovator."

The European Patent Office data considers any application that has been filed in two or more countries to be of high quality, based on the assumption that companies went through the trouble and expense of applying for a patent in more than one market with the intention of protecting their invention across borders. Patents prevent others from making, using or selling the innovation without permission for a specified period.

By that measure, China applied for more than twice as many high-quality clean energy patents as the US in 2022, the most recent year of complete data. And while Chinese applicants continue to file a large number of lower-quality patents that may be duplicative or insignificantly different from existing inventions, a growing proportion is of higher quality.

That trend has been driven by strategic policies from Beijing as well as a maturing of China's academic research environment.