China's 100 most innovative companies in 2018 named in third annual report by Clarivate Analytics

BEIJING, Oct. 16, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- China's most innovative companies have been identified in the 2018 Top 100 Chinese Innovators report launched today by Clarivate Analytics, the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation.  This is the third annual report created by Clarivate, using its patent analysis tools and data including the Derwent World Patents Index, Derwent Patents Citation Index, Derwent Innovation and Derwent Data Analyzer.   

Fifteen new companies have joined the list in 2018,12 of which make their first ever appearance in the Chinese Top 100 Innovators list, representing a range of industry sectors from Information Safety to Medical Devices to a range of high tech industries such as Electronic Components, Communications Equipment and Media Internet. Engineering sectors such as General and Special-purpose Machinery, Automotive and Electrical Equipment are again present together with other areas such as Consumer Goods and Healthcare.

The 2018 report created by Clarivate Analytics covers companies located in mainland China only and excludes Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan and is based on rigorous analysis of four key criteria:

1. Patent volume – based on a certain volume of inventions in the past five years
2. Patent-grant success rate – the number of inventions with granted invention patents by the number of basic patents from the most recent five years
3. Invention influence – how often the organization's invention is subsequently cited by other companies in the patenting of their inventions over the most recent five years
4. Globalization – the ratio of inventions filed for protection in countries outside China versus the total volume for that period

"Our analysis indicates that although there has been a slight decline in innovation quality, there has been a shift in strategy among some top innovators away from filing indiscriminately and cheaply and towards filing more selectively on their higher value innovation.  Companies are filing significantly fewer invention patent and utility model applications and are focusing on patenting only the inventions that are strategically more important to their organization," said Bob Stembridge, Principal Patent Analyst at Clarivate Analytics.

The report also revealed that the number of published patent applications in China has grown by an average of 15.3% CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) for the last five years to reach 1.27 million in 2017.  Over the same time period, utility models grew much less at 6.2% CAGR and granted patents rose 15.1% CAGR to just over 420,000. (Source: Derwent Innovation).

Linda Guo, Managing Director of the Greater China region for Clarivate Analytics added, "China's Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), identifies innovation as one of five key goals to drive China's rapid development and growth as the world's second largest economy. It also aims to increase R&D expenditure as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 2.5% by 2020, with support for innovation by way of tax breaks and other significant incentives to support patent filings by China-based entities. This has resulted in a massive increase in the number of Chinese patents as firms seek to protect and commercialize their innovation in one of the largest and most competitive global markets."

Other key findings in the 2018 report identified: 

• Technological innovation is becoming more concentrated in China's eastern region, although the balance has shifted from Beijing.
• The majority of the Top 100 Chinese innovators are focused on protecting their innovation domestically with 61 having patent portfolios comprising of 90% or more filed in China only.
• The average number of patent families within the Top 100 patent portfolios with filings in two or more countries grew by a healthy 12.5% compared to last year, indicating more companies are filing more globally, led this year by Huawei, ZTE, AMEC, Alibaba and BOE Technology.
• The overall combined influence metrics of the 2018 Top 100 Chinese innovators (the total of all influence scores) is 4.5% higher this year than 2017.
• The average citation ratio of 0.71 citations per citation for China's top innovators is still below that of the Top 100 Global Innovators at 1.13 citations per citation showing China still has room to increase its innovation influence globally.

The report is available for download in both Simplified Chinese and English. Download the English report here and here to download the Simplified Chinese report. 

About Derwent™
Derwent powers the innovation lifecycle from idea to commercialization – with trusted patent data, applications and services including Derwent Innovation, Derwent World Patents Index, Derwent Patents Citation Index and Derwent Data Analyzer. We build solutions for inventors, patent attorneys and licensing specialists at start-ups and the largest global innovators, legal professionals at the leading intellectual property practices, and patent examiners at more than 40 patent offices. Our solutions are used to monitor technology trends and competitive landscapes, inform FTO opinions, prosecute patents, monetize and license assets and support litigation activities.

About Clarivate Analytics
Clarivate Analytics is the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation. Building on a heritage going back more than 150 years, we have built some of the most established global brands across the innovation lifecycle, including Web of Science, Cortellis, Derwent, CompuMark, MarkMonitor and Techstreet. These trusted brands are focused on scientific and academic research, patent analytics and regulatory standards, pharmaceutical and biotech intelligence, trademark protection, domain brand protection and intellectual property (IP) management. Today, Clarivate Analytics is a new and independent company operating in more than 100 countries including the Greater China region, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand in Asia Pacific. For more information, visit clarivate.com.

Media Contacts
Pamela Lim
Clarivate Analytics
Senior External Communications Manager, Asia Pacific
+65 3158 0607 (o)
pamela.lim@clarivate.com

Jessica Stanek
Clarivate Analytics
External Communications Manager
+1 (215) 823-1821 (o)
jessica.stanek@clarivate.com

Clarivate Analytics Top 100 Chinese Innovators 2018

For the purpose of visualizing innovative strength and competitiveness of the Chinese Top 100 Innovators, the companies are categorized into four tiers* with 25 companies within each tier. In this way, we expect to identify and study innovation leaders in various fields, so as to help companies understand their industrial positions and better define their innovation goals.

The 15 organizations highlighted in bold with * are new to the 2018 Top 100 Chinese Innovators list.

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