China’s tech giants have been particularly active, with Huawei taking the top spot last year with 4,411 patent applications The Beijing government offers as much as 20 million yuan in subsidies for a PCT filing, versus 2 million for a domestic patent China may have overtaken the US in total number of international patents filed last year, but legal experts warn that much of the growth is being fuelled by state-backed subsidies that could flood the system with cheap patents.