"We should stop pursuing the numbers and focus more on helping applicants, especially small enterprises and individuals, implement their granted patents."

In the telecommunication industry, for example, the number of valid patents held by foreign entities is 10.8 times the amount held by domestic companies.

Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies, which had a domestic-leading 2,251 patents granted in 2013, could not find a place in the 2012 Thomson Reuters' list of Top 100 Global Innovators, for which the four criteria are all patent-related — overall patent volume, patent grant success rate, global reach of the portfolio, and patent influence as evidenced by citations.

Furthermore, of about 2.3 million invention patent applications filed in China since 1990, 38 percent came from overseas entities, usually multinational corporations, and only 28 percent from domestic ones.

Feng Xiaoqing, IPR professor at China University of Science and Law, said the government should provide more policy and financial support to encourage research institutions and local companies to implement their patents.