The number of patent applications is No. 1 in the world, and the international layout needs to be improved——
Can China's Biological Breeding Continue to Lead?
The "Patent Navigation Research Achievements in the Biological Breeding Industry" recently released by the Intellectual Property Development Research Center of the State Intellectual Property Office shows that China currently ranks first in the world in the number of patent applications for biological breeding. Among them, the number of molecular marker breeding patent applications has surpassed that of the United States, becoming the number of applications. Most countries.
Although China is a big seed country, it is not yet a strong seed country.
Bai Jianfeng, deputy director of the Intellectual Property Development Research Center of the State Intellectual Property Office, said that the current Chinese seed industry still has problems such as lagging international layout, unestablished commercial breeding system and mechanism, and high risk of infringement in some areas. Biological breeding needs to continue to lead. effort.
Research in the field of biological breeding is very active
Traditional breeding work relies on the experience and opportunities of breeding experts, which is often blind and unpredictable. Biological breeding can significantly improve breeding efficiency and provide stronger technical support for ensuring national food security and ecological security.
China attaches great importance to biological breeding technology and its industrialization.
The "Outline for Building a Powerful Country with Intellectual Property Rights (2021-2035)" proposes to speed up the cultivation of a number of new plant varieties with intellectual property rights and improve the quality of authorized varieties by focusing on cutting-edge technologies and key areas of biological breeding; Strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights in the breeding field.
According to Wang Lei, an associate researcher of the Second Research Division of the Intellectual Property Development Research Center of the State Intellectual Property Office, research has shown that the current global biological breeding patent applications are on the rise, and they have entered a stage of rapid development in the past 10 years.
China and the United States are the main patent application countries in the field of biological breeding, and the number of patent applications far exceeds other countries.
In the past 10 years, the development momentum of patent applications in China has been ahead of other countries, reflecting that research in the field of biological breeding in China is very active, while the growth momentum in the United States has slowed down.
From the perspective of classification, among the key technological innovations of biological breeding, the number of patent applications related to molecular marker-assisted breeding technology in China is relatively large, followed by patents related to genetic germplasm resources. Due to the late rise of molecular design breeding, the proportion of current applications is still relatively small. .
The top 10 domestic applicants in China are all universities and research institutions, and the top 3 are Zhejiang University, China Agricultural University, and Nanjing Agricultural University.
The number of patent applications in the Yazhou Bay area of Sanya, which is responsible for the construction of the "Southern Silicon Valley", has reached 67, of which 31 have obtained patent authorization.
These patents are mainly concentrated in the field of high-tech breeding, and there are also some patent applications in the field of emerging gene editing breeding.
Although the current total number of patent applications in this region is relatively small, the proportion of invention patent applications is relatively high, and the patent authorization rate is also relatively high.
Insufficient use of advanced technology in depth and breadth
Although China is the world's largest patent application country for biological breeding, the shortcomings of biological breeding itself are still very obvious.
"First of all, the depth and breadth of advanced technologies such as biological breeding are insufficient." Bai Jianfeng said, for example, that modern breeding techniques such as molecular assisted selection have been widely used in soybean breeding abroad to effectively improve breeding efficiency; while soybean breeding in China is basically conventional breeding. Obviously lags behind in breeding efficiency and precise improvement of specific traits.
Second, there is no breakthrough in core technology.
Take gene editing breeding technology as an example. TALEN and CRISPR are the development direction of gene editing breeding. Although China has made certain breakthroughs in the application of related technologies, it has not yet obtained the core patent of platform technology.
Wang Lei suggested that in the development of target genes for gene-edited crops, the major seed industry giants have not yet conducted intensive patent layout, and China can strengthen research and development in this field and advance patent layout in advance.
Bai Jianfeng also reminded that although China ranks first in the world in the number of patents in the field of plant biological breeding, most of the patents have only been applied for protection in China and lack the international strategic layout of patents.
"On the one hand, researchers lack the awareness of going abroad to apply for patent protection. On the other hand, there is currently a lack of social service agencies in China that help researchers apply for foreign patent protection." Bai Jianfeng said that the state should encourage and guide patentees’ patents from a policy perspective. The internationalization of applications further strengthens the international layout of China's plant biological breeding patent applications.
Solve mechanism obstacles to promote school-enterprise cooperation
From the perspective of the development of the seed industry itself, China still needs to resolve some institutional obstacles and promote school-enterprise cooperation.
The "Report" pointed out that most of China's crop variety selection and breeding are based on workshop-type breeding with a research team as a unit. A small team is responsible for the entire breeding process, with scattered strength and long breeding cycle; compared with the international advanced assembly line breeding system, There are huge gaps in efficiency, resources and technical means.
In addition, China is still in the initial stage of transforming traditional breeding to commercial breeding.
"Scientific research institutes and institutions of higher learning have the advantages of breeding resources, technology and talents, and have always been the main body of technological innovation in the breeding industry in China. However, the research mechanism aimed at completing scientific research topics, the technology-oriented breeding ideas, and the The classification, decentralized management, and single-handed breeding scientific research system have resulted in low breeding efficiency, low-level repetition, and lack of market competitiveness." Wang Lei believes that scientific research institutes value papers and inventions, quantity, quality, and results. , Light application of the scientific research evaluation system is also an important reason for the disconnect between scientific research and production, fewer breakthrough varieties, and low conversion rate of scientific and technological achievements.
At this stage, due to the different purposes, demands, and interest mechanisms of scientific research units and enterprises, there are problems such as loose organization, lack of interest in the cooperation process, and credit guarantee mechanisms. Therefore, it is necessary to accelerate the establishment of a new mechanism to promote scientific research and innovation in the breeding industry. R&D affects the virtuous circle of enterprises, industries building markets, and market guiding R&D.
Our reporter She Ying