Analysis Of Strategies Of Patent In China Pharmaceutical Industry

After joining WTO, China government has amended its Law of Patent inorder to integrate the Chinese intellectual property into the common practice ofthe rest of the world. That also complies with the pre-request of China'sjoining WTO. Pharmaceutical companies in China can no longer copy thepatented products from their foreign counterparts. In developed countries,pharmaceutical industry practices the most of the protection of intellectualproperty. While in China, the awareness of protection in terms of rights ofintelligence is rather weak. Their products are mainly copied from those of thebig international pharmaceutical companies. China will open its medical retailmar-ket by 2005. That means Chinese pharmaceutical companies will competedirectly with international big players, who are heavily invested with patentsbeing the core competitiveness. Without sufficient competitiveness, Chinapharmaceutical industry is in the dilemma of having to play in this extremelycompetitive environment. It is beneficial in developing strategies in China toanalyze and conduct research of the comparison in the patent environment inChina and developed countries.This paper analyzes the importance of patents in the competition ofpharmaceutical industry, the pre-requisite in developing patent competition, thecurrent status and the strategies of patenting in developed countries and thepatent competitiveness in China pharmaceutical companies. The paperprovides the strategies for Chinese companies in competing with their foreigncounterparts in order to improve the competitiveness through industryacquisition and joint venture.