Patent Trading is Also an Industry

Today I was reviewing materials for students’ Shanghai residency bonus points. I found that students apply for patents even more enthusiastically than teachers. At first I praised our great socialist system for infinitely unleashing students’ creativity. What a bright future for our motherland! But then I looked closer and found something wrong. How did a patent like “A New Method of Manual Fertilizer Application in Wheat Cultivation” appear? Are software engineering graduates going to work as “college student manure collectors”? Then I realized this was for residency requirements. A quick Google search revealed the following, reposted from a Sohu investigative column:

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“Providing patent name-lending for graduates to get extra points for Shanghai residency.” On February 10, a post about “patent processing for Shanghai residency points” caught reporters’ attention. The poster claimed they could handle patent applications, provide patent name-listing, and help graduates earn patent points for Shanghai residency, promising an invention patent acceptance notice within about 3 days. “With the acceptance notice, you can get 1 extra point. Price: 600 yuan.”

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So this has become a derivative industry. Well, this policy is truly wonderful.

Follow-up:

Nearly 10 students bought patent points, especially the “wheat manure” patent and some “adult product” patent. This caused outrage among students who didn’t buy patents in the software学院. The学院 has decided to completely eliminate patent points from all future bonus point policies. Yet another Chinese-style “one-size-fits-all” solution. Like the countless repeated dramas of “recommendation cancellation scandals” and “project substitution scandals” — when it costs too much to tell the genuine from the fake, you just kill them all with one棍子. The evil fakes finally get their just deserts, and the genuine ones won’t buzz in your ear like flies anymore.