After the raid on Olympic gold medals, China is racing for another prize: the lead in patents!

A recent report from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) indicates that between 2005 and 2006 the number of filings worldwide by applicants from China increased by 32.1%. Chinese residents increased their share of total worldwide patent filings from 1.8% to 7.3% between 2000 and 2006 - mostly due to increases in domestic patent filings.

At the corporate level, the telecommunication equipment manufacturer Huawei has even moved up 9 places to become the 4th largest patent applicant with 1,365 applications published in 2007, following Matsushita, Philips Electronics N.V. and Siemens. While just missing the podium, it leads among all Chinese patent applicants for the sixth year in a row and now totals more than 29000 patents.

So, is the era of reverse-engineering and pirating over? For sure, there aren’t so many “Huawei” out there yet but at least it is an encouraging sign that Chinese companies now take pride in patenting.

According to a recent Gartner report, innovation is re-shaping China’s economy. And this time it is supposed to come from domestic firms.

There are the technology innovators like Yulong which developed mobile phones that work with both GSM and CDMA networks;  the business model innovators like Focus Media who invented selling ads via LCDs; and even the operation innovators, like China Mobile who are able to maintain a 50% margin with a voice tariff below 0.03 cents per minute.

For the time being innovation is still not radical. Most business models and products are copied from firms in developed economies but pioneering days may be getting closer. Government policy has maintained a strong emphasis on innovation policy over the past decade. All is needed now is a critical mass of private sector players…

Some of the major Chinese websites formed an alliance last week to monitor and fight the piracy of authorized online videos about the Olympic Games. The websites will jointly set up a round-the-clock monitor over the Internet, open hotlines to receive tips as well as publicizing a daily list of online pirates…

The partner websites promised to adopt proper technologies to prevent illegal links and not to provide Olympic videos for any unauthorized websites. They will also include only authorized Olympic videos in their search engines. The initiative is back by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) which has ordered all websites to respect the broadcast rights of www.cctv.com - the website was granted the exclusive rights to conduct live streaming of the Olympics in the Chinese mainland and Macao over the Internet and mobile phones.

P.S.: A number of counterfeit mobile phone producers have officially applied to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) to make branded products. The reason?Fake mobile phones do not sell well and the manufacturers are forced to dump their products - these companies have monthly sales of 50,000 to 80,000 units. The move to legality (and higher margins) is driven by stricter restrictions and the lack of distribution channels. In addition, consumsers are increasingly trading lower prices for brands and after-sales service guarantee. But the task of building a brand is by no means easy for counterfeit producers. Serious quality issues have tarnished their reputations.

D Day-7: all the rage is about reporters finding out that they don’t have the same access to websites as usual. Type in falun gong or tibet and you get a blank page or an error (something covered during Lift06…).

What strikes me as suprising is the (fainted?) naïvity on both sides. Did foreign reporters really believe that Beijing would “open” China’s Internet during the Games (and potentially leave it open afterwards)? Did the Chinese government really believe that the press would search the Internet in China solely for articles on athletes or sports?

No more surprising is the IOC admitting on July 30 that its officials negotiated with the Chinese that some sensitive sites would be blocked on the basis they were not considered Games related! The Chinese are limiting their promise to providing the media with convenient and sufficient access to the Internet.

Time for the foreign media to [dis]cover how to circumvent China’s firewall…

P.S.: For those who didn’t notice, Eutelsat Communications stopped some time ago broadcasting New Tang Dynasty Television’s (NTDTV) to China - officially due to a power generator subsystem problem, less officially because the network was getting repeated complaints and reminder from the Chinese government. Strange practices since the European Union’s charter that created Eutelsat required the practice of non-discrimination, equal access, and respect for media pluralism. Censorship doesn’t always from where you expect it!

 In 2007 the 530+ million Chinese mobile subscribers received 350+ billion spam text messages: that’s an average of 666 spam text message per year - close to 2 per day.

Representatives from 34 operators and service provider companies, including China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, China Netcom, Sina, Tencent and Kong.net, joined forces with the Internet Society of China (ISC) to tackle the issue.

The result? A self-disciplinary convention on anti-spam, strongly supported by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology who has also been looking in improving the governance over mobile spam. Users can now download a software with functions including message filtering and screening

The Beijing Airport is trying to get feedback from the passengers. But this very commendable initiative is just slightly biased…. since you can vote before being granted entry and receiving your passport back from the Customs’ officer.

As you can see, in addition to voting you can even leave a “voice” comment. Can you imagine complaining to the machine right in front of the officer?

It was not so long ago that the portrayal of the “other” China was the monopoloy of the odd-foreign journalist braving local authorities and self-censorship to cover sensitive topics (like Tibet, AIDS villages, public demonstrations, etc.).

YouTube (and the other video sharing websites) coupled with blogs are fundamentally altering this. Chinese netizens are posting increasingly daring comments on blogs (e.g. the Weng’An riot). They are also posting more and more videos (easily made with cellphones) on the Internet (e.g. the beating up of villagers by the village head together with a group of thugs as they refuse to leave their homes which will be demolished for a construction project - please note that the images are crude).

This is of course giving plenty of additional work to the Chinese cyber-police… at least for sites hosted within China.

Some of you may remember that Morse was officially abandonned in 1997, when the French navy ceased using the code with a final message ”Calling all. This is our last cry before our eternal silence.”

Well, it looks like Morse has not gone completely forgotten by everyone, and especially not netizens in China who are using it, among other, to escape the vigilance of the cyber-police!

Here is the link for those interested in translating from Chinese to morse or vice-versa.