Abstract: China is experiencing a boom in patent application, in which enterprises play an important role. For what purpose are the enterprises conducting patent application, and what are the main factors which caused widespread concern in the theory and practice circles? International experiences show that companies are constantly motivated by what is beyond the traditional purpose for which patent monopoly may protect the market revenue, and that a large number of patent applications are considered out of the non-implementation factors. To throw lights on the Chinese enterprises behaviors, this paper makes an empirical study by use of quantitative analysis methods on the above issues based on the data from China's National Patent Survey organized by State Intellectual Property Office. The results show that Chinese enterprises start to show a variety of non-implementation application features, and that the "entry into the patent pool and standards", the "shaping of the corporate image", the "uses for cross-licensing" and other features converge with international development. At the present stage in China, the enterprises' size, their ability to use intellectual property portfolio, the intellectual property maturity, external policy and other factors have a significant impact on the non-implementation of enterprises' applications motivation.

Key words: Patent strategy, patent application motives, patent survey, empirical analysis