PLA patents declassified for civilian use

The People’s Liberation Army has declassified and made public more than 2,300 national defense patents, PLA Daily reported on Sunday.

The National Defense Intellectual Property Rights Bureau of the Central Military Commission’s Equipment Development Department has declassified about 3,000 national defense patents and opened 2,346 of them to the public, according to PLA Daily.

It said it is the first time the PLA has declassified and made public military patents since it began to register such patents in 1985. The measure is intended to facilitate the transfer of military technologies to civilian industries to boost the coordinated development of the civilian and defense sectors, the report said.

The patents can be viewed at weain.mil.cn－a website managed by the CMC Equipment Development Department’s Procurement Information Service Center－in the “Patent and Achievement” section where a total of 101 pages of detailed patent entries are available for public viewing.

The first several pages checked by China Daily contain a wide range of patents, such as those relating to missiles, aircraft, communications, vehicles and tracking systems.

Each entry lists details of the patent, including its designated code, the dates of its submission and approval, its inventor and his or her employer, its function and the patent’s agent and its legal status.

PLA Daily said that previously, it was difficult for defense patents, which are generally classified and not available for public searching like those for civilian use, to be transferred to civilian users because of the absence of related policies and poor communication between the PLA and civilian sectors.

It said that in 2015, the military started to organize patent holders to review their patents and determine whether the patents could be declassified.

The bureau plans to establish regulations on the confidentiality and declassification of national defense patents, pledging to declassify and publish patents on a regular basis, PLA Daily reported, saying these measures will help to make good use of defense patents and to nurture innovation in the development of weapons and equipment.

A defense technology industry observer in Beijing, who wished to be identified as Wu, said that opening suitable defense patents to the public benefits businesses, as they can use these patents to save on their research spending.

“Military and defense contractors can also save research and development funds, because in the past, many defense technology researchers had no access to patent information that was submitted by other researchers, which led to them conducting research that had already been done,” Wu said.

“Now they can check with patent information before embarking on a new project, which will save money for the PLA and their employer,” he said.