U.S. Patent registration may cost between and $20,000 preventing many ordinary people from filing a patent application for an invention. Apparently a patent in China is far less costly- perhaps $150 to a few hundred dollars for a substantial examination, and foreigners need hire a Chinese patent agent to file for the- and there are quite a few to be found with Google search.
Since has has more than double the number of patent inventions than the U.S.A. annually I wonder if the exorbitant cost of U.S. patents is a art of the fight of American patent applicants to China via the internet? Since China is the manufacturing center of the world it might make it easier to go from patent registrations in China to manufacture in China anyway.
