More than 900 kinds of Chinese herbal medicine projects have become foreign patents. China only accounts for the international market.

Guide: from September 25 to 29, a research team jointly composed of the traditional Chinese Medicine Department, the protein Department, and the Modern Chinese Medicine Department of the Patent Office of the State intellectual property Office came to Chongqing to investigate the traditional Chinese medicine industry.

What can I do to save you my patent of traditional Chinese medicine?

In this process, a group of data provided by the research group is shocking: China is a big country of Chinese herbal medicine, but more than 900 kinds of Chinese herbal medicine projects have been patented by foreign companies.

"many traditional Chinese medicine formulations have been obtained by Japan, South Korea, Europe, the United States and other countries, and have applied for patents abroad or even in China." According to a person in charge of the Pharmaceutical and Biological Invention examination Department of the Patent Office of the State intellectual property Office, taking Japan as an example, the prescriptions of 210 Chinese prescription preparations come from China.

According to the statistics of the World Health Organization, at present, about 4 billion people in the world use Chinese herbal medicine to treat diseases, and the annual sales of international traditional Chinese medicine is 16 billion US dollars. In front of this "big cake", Japan gets 80%, South Korea gets 10%, India, Singapore and other countries get 7%, while China, as the "ancestor of traditional Chinese medicine", gets only 3%.

Chongqing is a major producer of traditional Chinese medicine, but there are only 25 patents for new products of traditional Chinese medicine.

In Chongqing, traditional Chinese medicine is not only the traditional advantage industry of our city, but also an important means of regional economic development and farmers' income increase in the northeast and southeast of Chongqing.

According to Li Longyun, vice president of Chongqing Institute of traditional Chinese Medicine, with the launch of the project "Integrated demonstration and Promotion of High-efficiency and High-quality planting, extraction and processing Technology of authentic Medicinal Materials in Chongqing" in November last year, the city plans to select varieties of traditional Chinese medicine such as Bupleurum, Flos Lonicerae, Radix Aucklandiae and Herba Epimedii and 34 standardized planting techniques, and build a demonstration base of 300000 mu of high-efficiency and high-quality planting techniques for traditional Chinese medicine in more than 10 districts and counties, including Xiushan.

The production area of traditional Chinese medicine is not equal to the strong patent area of traditional Chinese medicine. According to the statistics of the Municipal Institute of traditional Chinese Medicine, since 2003, the institute has declared a total of 136 patents and authorized 55. Among them, there are only 25 patents related to new products of traditional Chinese medicine.

Li Longyun said that although the number of patents has increased overall since 2008, there are still relatively few patents involving new products of traditional Chinese medicine, and the conversion rate of patents is relatively low.

There are three major obstacles to the protection of intellectual property rights in drugs with more patents and less intellectual property rights.

Why are there more drugs and fewer patents? According to the person in charge of the municipal intellectual property office, the weak awareness of intellectual property protection, the lack of capital investment, and the lack of core competitiveness are the three major obstacles to the patent protection of traditional Chinese medicine in Chongqing, which is also a microcosm of the national traditional Chinese medicine industry.

Products with weak sense of protection have become foreign cash cow.

The person in charge said, for example, that artemisinin is the only drug in China that has been listed in the catalogue of WHO basic drugs. Since its successful development in 1978, tens of millions of malaria patients have been saved from death.

However, due to the lack of awareness of intellectual property protection in China at that time, the chemical structure, efficacy and clinical data of artemisinin were published in detail in academic journals and international conferences. Within a few years, similar foreign products came out one after another and applied for patents.

In the international market, artemisinin and its derivatives sell as much as $1.5 billion a year, but China has less than 1 per cent of the market. "native" traditional Chinese medicine has become a cash cow for foreign pharmaceutical companies.

Less capital investment, "the largest prescription" pharmaceutical companies account for only 3%.

Take Chongqing Xieran Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., as one of the largest traditional Chinese medicine enterprises in Chongqing, its sales revenue exceeded 500 million yuan last year. Of this total, more than 16 million yuan was invested in intellectual property rights, accounting for only 3% of the sales revenue.

As a matter of fact, this is already considered "willing to spend money" among domestic pharmaceutical companies. The official said that the intellectual property investment of many developed foreign pharmaceutical companies accounted for 10% of the sales revenue. Compared with them, Chinese pharmaceutical companies are still "stingy".

Lack of core competence, limited market space.

Of the 68 patents on Ginkgo biloba, only 4 have been applied by foreign countries, but they almost cover the whole extraction process of Ginkgo biloba. This means that China's 64 patents are only "superficial", and the real core competitiveness is in the hands of others.

Peppermint is a traditional Chinese medicine in China. At present, there are 16 patents declared. There are 8 pieces in China and 8 in foreign countries, which are equally divided in quantity. However, careful analysis shows that foreign technology patents are mainly used in high-profit markets such as chewing gum, while China's patents are only mint lotus root, peppermint tea, etc., and the market space is very narrow.

The less investment, the smaller the competitive strength, the enterprises will fall into a vicious circle.

"the more reluctant you are to invest in intellectual property protection and core product research and development, the more you can't compete with others. And the more backward you are, the less money you have to invest more in this area. " Liu Junxiang, director of the protein Department of the Pharmaceutical and Biological Invention examination Department of the Patent Office of the State intellectual property Office, said that it is not only enterprises, but also has an impact on ordinary citizens in the long run.

If enterprises do not strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights, they will not have the money to engage in innovation and research and development. not only will there be no more new drugs for the public to choose from, but many "incurable diseases" cannot be overcome, affecting the lives and health of the public.

Strengthening the Protection of intellectual property Rights the Government plans to create Geographical indications of traditional Chinese Medicine

The government is working hard on how to increase the protection of intellectual property rights of traditional Chinese medicine. A few days ago, the Chongqing Municipal Government announced the outline of Chongqing intellectual property Strategy, which gives more prominence to the application and protection on the basis of the original policy.

The outline points out that the creation of intellectual property rights is for the use of services, therefore, pay more attention to quality, no longer simply for the pursuit of quantity. In terms of protection, efforts should be made to enhance the intellectual property protection ability of market subjects, help enterprises train relevant talents, guide overseas protection of rights, and improve the initiative and success rate of enterprises in dealing with foreign-related intellectual property disputes. By 2020, the total number of valid patents in the city will reach 120000, with more than 6 invention patents per 10,000 population.

The outline specifically points out that the ecological conservation and development areas in northeast Chongqing and the ecological protection and development areas in southeast Chongqing should be positioned according to the ecological functional areas, the main producing areas of agricultural products and biodiversity protection areas, and vigorously develop geographical indications in the field of traditional Chinese medicine industry. This is undoubtedly a great blessing for the intellectual property protection of traditional Chinese medicine.