SHENZHEN, China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ZTE Corporation (“ZTE”) (H share stock code: 0763.HK / A share stock code: 000063.SZ), a leading global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions, today announced it made a milestone leap from 23^rd place in 2009 to rank second in 2011 in terms of international patent applications, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). This follows a significant jump in China’s number of international patent applications as well, with the country now the world’s fourth largest in terms of applications.

As of December 31, 2010, ZTE held a total of 1863 international patent applications as registered with WIPO.

According to official online data from WIPO, ZTE’s number of PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty, a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions globally) applications and ranking has leapfrogged for five years in a row. Since 2006 when ZTE’s PCT ranking entered the top 100 of the world for the first time, its annual ranking has jumped from 52nd in 2007, 38th in 2008, 23^rd in 2009 to second place in 2010. ZTE’s global competitiveness has also been growing proportionally, with the percentage of overseas revenue increasing from 44% in 2006, 57.8% in 2007 and 60% in 2008 respectively.

Despite the dramatic global economy slowdown over the last two years, ZTE still realized steady growth – its global revenue from principal operations reached RMB 70.3 billion in 2010, increasing 16.69% year-on-year.

Xie Daxiong, ZTE EVP in charge of IPR strategy, said: “The number of PCT patent applications is an authoritative measure of a company’s international innovation ability and competitiveness as well as an important tool for Chinese technology companies to participate in international competition and develop international markets. ZTE hopes to continuously enhance its own IPR strength, to eventually excel in both technology and market by investing in R&D and independent innovation on an ongoing basis.”

ZTE has maintained a standard practice to invest 10% of its income on R&D including the development of international patent strategy. Even during the financial crisis over the last two years, ZTE did not reduce its R&D spending – total R&D spending in these two years reached RMB 13 billion. WIPO noted that due to factors such as the financial crisis and declining R&D spending, European and North American countries do not have a good performance in patent applications. The number of international patent applications of U.S. and UK even has been declining for three consecutive years. In comparison, China’s number of international patent applications has been showing a robust growth against the downturn by 30% and 56% over the last two years respectively, faster than any other country in the world.

According to ZTE, the fast growth of its number of international patent applications year after year is rooted in its accumulated strength in the IPR field as a whole. In addition to the huge R&D budget each year, ZTE now has over 30 thousand experienced researchers as well as a full-time IPR team working in the R&D system; and has 15 R&D centers in Sweden, U.S., France, India, as well as China’s Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing.

Based on its long-term accumulation in the IPR field, currently ZTE has filed a total of over 33 thousand international patent applications, and has become one of the main patent holders in the global communications industry. Over 90% of its patents are invention patents, including numerous basic patents covering international technical standards for communications as well as core patents covering the key technologies of the communications industry. Among them, in the industry’s mainstream wireless broadband technologies, ZTE already has 235 basic LTE patents, accounting for 7%, to become one of the main holders of basic LTE patents.

In addition, ZTE has won many prestigious national awards for its innovation and application quality, including three China Patent Gold Awards, 10 China Patent Excellence Awards, and four major invention awards in the information industry.