Prof. Dr. Paul Struik

Innovation plays an important role in modern societies. In agriculture, novel technologies are crucial to enhance productivity, quality, efficiency, climate-robustness and sustainability. Knowledge valorisation is essential to cover the costs of ongoing R&D activities. Patents are exclusive rights granted to an inventor for an original invention and provide legal protection. They foster technological innovation by providing these incentives; patents may also stimulate dissemination of technical information and transfer of technology, as other stakeholders may use the innovation under licence.
Wang et al. (2024) reported that from 2017 to 2021, China filed 628,300 patents for agricultural inventions, divided into those related to breeding (e.g., new breeding techniques, novel traits), cultivation (e.g., novel approaches in fertiliser application or pest control), and processing (e.g., ultrasound processing, new products). Only a small percentage of these patents proved applicable in practice. For potato, the authors report on 2513 valid potato invention patents in China from 1986 to 2019: 212 related to breeding, 601 to cultivation, and 1672 to processing, whereas 28 patents were difficult to classify. The number of yearly patents was relatively low until 2004, increased rapidly in the period 2004-2014 and then dropped gradually again. Although Chinese patents are not automatically recognized in other countries (and vice versa), it should be noted that an increasing number of Chinese patents are also transferred to other, including European, countries.

For the 1908 potato patents that were achieved through collaboration, the authors carried out a social network analysis, which characterizes networked structures based on nodes (which could be things within the network or single actors) and all the edges, links or ties (reflecting interactions or relations) that connect these nodes. Typical and important properties of social networks are network density (defined as “the proportion of direct ties in a network relative to the total number possible”) and clustering coefficient (defined as “measure of the likelihood that two associates of a node are associates”, whereby a high value of the clustering coefficient indicates a strong “cliquishness”, i.e. a strong tendency to associate with only a small group). These properties determine to a significant extent the impact of agricultural innovation. Increased network density leads to less communication costs and creates trust and reciprocity. Higher clustering coefficient may result in a collective stalemate due to limited knowledge within a group.
The numbers of patents achieved through collaboration differed between provinces in a surprising way: for the main potato-producing provinces this number was relatively low (476), whereas this number was much higher for provinces with less potato production (1432). The main potato-patent-producing provinces in China are Beijing, Shandong and Gansu. The main potato-producing provinces are Gansu, Guizhou, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, and Yunnan. The network analysis demonstrated that inventor collaborations were more complex and more frequent in the provinces that were non-main agricultural producers of potato than in the provinces that produced a lot of potatoes. Moreover, there were few collaborations between the main potato-producing provinces and other provinces, whether these other provinces were main producing areas for potato or not. In general, there was much more collaboration within a province than across provinces. Inventors from the non-main potato-producing provinces were more likely to establish collaborative networks across provinces.
But the collaborative network of potato patents was sparse and consisted of only a few, isolated clusters. The density of the entire collaborative network was lower than the density of the separate categories of patents. That indicates that the members of the collaborative networks of innovation among the three categories did not collaborate very much, suggesting that inventions in, for example, breeding were not inspired by inventions in, for example, cultivation or processing. Potato patent inventors clustered together, i.e., the clustering coefficient was very high, especially in provinces such as Heilongjiang and Yunnan. This clustering reinforces the capacity to disseminate knowledge and reduces communication costs.
There were significant differences between the categories breeding, cultivation and processing. The breeding potato patents came from more sparse clusters and most of them were in the non-main potato-producing provinces. However, there were also important clusters observed in Gansu and Yunnan, which are both main potato-producing areas. The cultivation patents came from several sparse clusters, and these were indeed concentrated in main potato-producing areas. The processing patents were mostly coming from a few rather dense and large clusters, mainly in Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia, both main potato-producing provinces. Heilongjiang had collaborations with non-main potato-producing areas. Gansu was the only province with all fields of potato innovation represented.
Overall, lower density and stronger clustering were conducive for potato patents, both in main potato-producing areas and in non-producing areas. There was a positive relation between the number of patents and the yield, although this relationship was especially strong for the non-main potato-producing areas and for China as a whole. Obviously, such relationships were especially strong for patents in breeding and in cultivation.

In Europe, patenting is a hot potato

An important, general question that is much broader than the innovation rate in potato breeding, cultivation and processing in China, is whether patents in crop development are useful and desired. Companies have the opportunity to protect their intellectual property while at the same time offer the opportunity to share it with other stakeholders. In the category breeding, this is a sensitive issue. Can one own something that is naturally occurring, such as a resistance gene? In Europe, there was some agreement that patents on plants that have been obtained through classical breeding should no longer be granted. There is a different right that supports the breeders: the so-called breeder’s right. With this right, every breeder can use varieties produced by other breeders to continue breeding with and then produce new varieties that the breeder may register as her or his own, provided there is a clear distinction with earlier registered vari­eties. This is a balanced approach that works very well in practice in many countries, including the Netherlands. But that discussion on patenting of nature has not ended. There is a difference between a patent for a plant or a gene and a patent for a technique. For new genomic techniques, such as CRISPR-Cas, patents were and still are possible; users of such techniques will have to pay for a licence to use. But also beyond the use of patented techniques, there are issues. Although there seems to be agreement that biological processes or entities cannot be patented to prevent that certain characteristics become in the hand of a single breeding company (e.g., climate smart genes), there are still technological aspects that seem to open the opportunity to get legal protection of a gene through the back door e.g., by patenting markers. In many countries the debate about this is still ongoing, the pendulum swings back and forth, and the issue becomes increasingly complicated by new applications for patents. Future-proof laws and regulations are very difficult to create. But not so in China. In China, many scholars support a gene patent system.
Patents on cultivation are much less under debate. Agricultural machinery to carry out certain practices are heavily patented and the same applies to crop protectants, fertilisers, biostimulants and the like. Also in the food processing industry, patents are very common, although the debate in that sector is more on whether ultra-processed food, such as crisps, is desirable. ●

Paul C. Struik
Emeritus professor Wageningen University & Research

Reference
Huaiyu Wang, Qiaoyu Wang, Yao Xiao,Honshu Chen, Zhiwen Su & Chao Xiang, 2024. Collaborative network, technological progress and potato production in China. Potato Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11540-024-09780-7