Chinese pesticide producers are lagging behind the rest of the world in applying for patents even though the country is the world's second largest pesticide producer, said an official with the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO).

Of all the pesticide patent applications handled by the Chinese government, applications submitted by foreign companies were about five times that of Chinese companies, SIPO statistics showed.

"The lack of awareness in patent protection will hinder the development of Chinese pesticide companies, as the sector has been fully opened to foreign competitors," Yang Ming, an official with the SIPO agricultural and chemistry section, told a forum on Saturday.

Yang said a similar problem was evident in China's chemical fertilizer industry, which registered the world's biggest output and became fully open to foreign competition on December 11 under China's WTO commitment.

From 1985 to November 2006, the number of patent applications filed by Chinese companies accounted for only 20 percent of the 3,526 domestic applications in the sector. The rest were submitted by Chinese individuals or research institutes.

During the same period, of the 1,039 patents applications made in China from foreign countries, about 80 percent were from foreign companies, according to SIPO figures.

"Chinese entrepreneurs seem to have not fully understood the role of patents in competition," he said.

Wang Ren, a senior engineer with the China Oil and Chemical Planning Institute urged Chinese companies to take more initiative in their intellectual property rights protection and adapt to international rules.

(Xinhua News Agency December 18, 2006)