By Wu Yuejiao, Guangdong Intellectual Property Protection Center

Given China’s strategies to halt the rise of carbon emissions by 2030 and strive for carbon neutrality by 2060, huge investment is necessary for many industries to achieve green and low-carbon development – a development pattern that will bring green consumption, green production, green circulation, green innovation, green finance, etc.

The article is mainly based on patent abstract data of China, Japan, the US, South Korea, World Intellectual Property Organization and European Patent Office. Chinese patent data involve patents for inventions and utility models. Data sources include Guangdong Intellectual Property Public Information Integrated Service Platform, CNIPR and LexisNexis.

Innovation of China’s green petrochemical industry

1. Patents

Domestic green petrochemical industry contributed 1.2% to the nation’s total published patent applications in 2021. Growing 4.4% annually in recent five years, the number of China’s published green petrochemical industry patent applications reached 401 383 in December 2021, with 87.4% (equivalent to 350 821) regarding patents for inventions and 48.8% (or 196 056) being granted. By regions, 145 494 granted patents for inventions mainly came from developed areas like Beijing, Guangdong and Jiangsu (see Table 1 for details).

Valid green petrochemical industry patents amounted to 142 655 in December 2021, when the number of valid patents for inventions totaled 110 245 including 102 200 high-value patents. More specifically, there were 96 021 high-value valid patents for inventions related to strategic emerging industries, 38 973 owning homogeneous patent right abroad, 29 486 with more than 10 years of patent live life, 1 628 with pledge financing activities and 242 obtaining Chinese patent award. Top five regions having high-value patents were Beijing (13 140), Jiangsu (9 479), Guangdong (9 230), Shanghai (7 332) and Zhejiang (4 934) in 2021. See Figure 1 for details.

Figure 1  High-value green petrochemical industry patents in 10 provinces and cities

As for innovative green petrochemical firms in 31 provinces and cities, they made up 50.8% (equivalent to 178 122) of domestic published applications of green petrochemical industry patents for inventions in December 2021, followed by colleges and universities (11.2%, equivalent to 39 246) and scientific research institutions (3.1% or 10 965). In detail, enterprises owning relatively more published invention patent applications mainly included Sinopec Corp. (9 654), BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd. (3 019), etc.; colleges and universities, Donghua University (1 267), Zhejiang University (914), etc.; scientific research institutions, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (868), Institute of Microelectronics (IME) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (602), etc.

In December 2021, the number of industry-university-research cooperation patents related to green petrochemical industry (especially segments of synthetic materials, functional membrane materials, electronic chemicals, etc.) was 5 848, taking up 1.5% of domestic published green petrochemical industry patent applications, with applicants concentrating in Beijing (1 302), Jiangsu (726), Shanghai (536), Guangdong (465) and Zhejiang (328). Figure 2 shows distribution of industry-university-research cooperation patents related to green petrochemical industry, and Table 2 shows key cooperative universities and institutions.

Figure 2 Distribution of industry-university-research cooperation patents related to  China’s green petrochemical industry

2. Innovative enterprises

Up 21% annually in recent five years and seeing the fastest growth of 24.5% in 2017, the number of innovative green petrochemical enterprises – located in domestic 31 provinces and cities and having conducted patent applications – reached 49 012 in December 2021. More specifically, these enterprises were mainly located in southeast coastal areas, especially in Jiangsu (9 766), Guangdong (7 933), Zhejiang (4 867), Anhui (3 779) and Shandong (3 165). See Table 3 for details.

Among innovative green petrochemical enterprises mentioned above, 39.1% or 19 143 were national high-tech enterprises, 5.7% or 2 810 were startups, 1.5% or 714 were hidden champion enterprises (i.e. enterprises taking a leading position in a sector, enjoying core competitiveness and clear strategies and providing products or services that could hardly be replaced), 2.1% or 1 022 were listed companies, 0.03% or 17 were unicorn companies (i.e. unlisted startups founded less than 10 years, valued at more than US$1 billion) and 8.2% or 4 038 were specialized and sophisticated enterprises producing new and unique products (see Figure 3 for details). Figure 4 shows comparison of different patents in innovative green petrochemical firms with relatively more published patent applications.

Figure 3 Number of China’s characteristic green petrochemical enterprises 

Figure 4  Comparison of different patents in domestic key green petrochemical firms

3. China’s innovative talents

Rising 17.3% annually in recent five years and seeing the fastest increase of 18.6% YoY in 2017, the number of innovative talents – in domestic 31 provinces and cities and submitting green petrochemical patent applications – totaled 407 370 in December 2021, mainly from Jiangsu, Guangdong, Beijing and other comparatively developed areas (see Table 4 for details), and including 27 247 (6.7%) national high-level talents, 37 508 technical executives (9.2%), 23 592 technology entrepreneurs (5.8%), etc.

Among the 407 370 innovative talents, green petrochemical firms accounted for 63.9% (equivalent to 260 198), colleges and universities took up 22.6% (92 014), scientific research institutions 5.6% (22 852) and public institutions 1% (4 011).

Hot spots and key technological innovation trends of China's green petrochemical industry

The number of published applications of green petrochemical industry invention patents in domestic 31 provinces and cities reached 255 567, that of innovative enterprises 49 012 and that of innovative talents 407 370, with compound growth rates of 2.9%, 21.0% and 17.3%, respectively, in recent five years (see Table 5 for details).

Quantities of published invention patent applications, innovative enterprises and innovative talents grew 6.0%, 20.2% and 15.6% annually in recent five years, all higher than the average of oil refining sector. Table 6 shows innovation situation of upstream segments like LGP, LNG, refined oil products and other oil products.

In basic chemical sector, midstream of China’s green petrochemical industry chain, quantities of published invention patent applications, innovative enterprises and innovative talents rose 5.9%, 15.3% and 13.2% annually in recent five years. Acetylene and propylene areas gained faster growth than the basic chemical sector’s average (see Table 7 for details).

A downstream sector of green petrochemical industry chain, synthetic material and new chemical material sector achieved annual increase of 2.5% (slightly lower than green petrochemical industry’s average) in the number of published invention patent applications, and 21.7% (higher than the average) in the number of innovative enterprises and 18.4% (higher than the average) in the number of innovative talents in recent five years. In high-end fine chemical product sector, quantities of published invention patent applications, innovative enterprises and innovative talents rose 6.3%, 23.3% and 19% annually in recent five years, all higher than the average of green petrochemical industry (see Table 8 for details).