Foxconn claims 90% of Chinese patents are useless

Fu Shaoming, director of Foxconn's Intellectual Property Management Department, believes that many of China's so-called new and practical patents are actually useless and 90% of them should be canceled. Fu's remark has caused a big stir in China, for relevant statistics show that the country has as many as 161366 practical and new patents in 2006 alone.

Practical and new patents cover one of the three main categories (the other two kinds of patents are inventions and outlook designs) of patents and it refers to new technological solutions that are suitable for product shapes, structures and combinations.