A study showed that China has been owning over 11,300 patents developed in Germany for more than twenty years, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing a study from the German Economic Institute.
A foreign entity owns almost one in three German-made inventions, with U.S. owners owning a third and Swiss owners holding about 11%, according to the Bertelsmann Foundation-commissioned study, the report said.
China has been particularly active in acquiring technologies in mechanical engineering, where patent applications increased to 4,300 in 2022 from 3,300 in 2000, according to the media outlet.
IW expert Oliver Koppel said Europe must make a deeper study on where these technologies are migrating due to the imbalance in Western acquisitions. He also said that Germany's insufficient investment in research and development is putting its domestic innovative capability in a fragile state, the report said.
The report said Germany's R&D spending fell to the sixth spot globally in 2021 from the third place in 2000, while China raised its R&D investment twentyfold over the period, according to Reuters.
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