Even though US law firm Heller Ehrman LLP opened a Hong Kong branch in the 1970s, it took almost 30 years before it had a presence on the mainland. Yet only three years elapsed between the inception of its Beijing office and a second one in Shanghai.

Instead of dispatching Westerners or recruiting local lawyers to head the office, the Los Angles firm chose two Chinese-speaking lawyers from the US, both with more than 15 years of experience. Their primary task is to help both Chinese and foreign companies with intellectual property rights cases.

Similar to the manufacturing and financial sectors, talent from overseas may help China, a rising focus of global intellectual property (IP) issues, ease its dire shortage for professionals in the field.

Zheng Shengli, dean of the intellectual property law school of Peking University, said in late October that by 2010, China may need 55,000 to 60,000 IP professionals and 30,000 more experts will be needed in the following decade.

He said at a symposium on implementing IP strategy and developing an innovative economy that his team estimates there are 1.47 million researchers at enterprises and universities. The proportion of IP professionals to total research staff in developed countries is usually 1 to 4 percent. Even if the demand for talent is calculated at 2 percent, China may need 29,400 professionals to help work out strategies, file patents and trademark rights and manage IP portfolios.

Yet it is not only private professionals that are in need, but also those in government agencies.

Tian Lipu, commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), said his organization has already become the third-largest examination team in the world after the US and European Union, and is the most efficient operation with the shortest examination times.

Even as the SIPO added 800 examiners last year, increasing the total to 2,800, the number of those needed will grow further to 5,000.

"The number of patent filings has been growing by 15 percent on average in the past three years," says Zheng with Peking University. "China led the world in trademark numbers for three years in a row, and the number of copyright registrations also grew substantially, so without adding more hands, authorities will have difficulty handling the demands."

He estimates that the country will need 2,100 patent examiners, 1,500 trademark examiners, and 4,000 law enforcement officers before 2010.

The demand for judges is also growing.

Xiong Xuanguo, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court, said at a symposium at Renmin University of China that there are almost 320 IP tribunals in the nation with almost 1,700 judges, including more than 1,000 trained after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Research from Peking University shows that before 2010, 320 IP judges are likely to retire or be transferred to other posts. Along with the trend of increasing IP cases, courts in the nation will need 800 judges.

As patent filings may double, the number of patent agents will also need to grow by 100 percent if productivity remains unchanged.

Yuan Jie, director of the IP office of Chongqing Municipality, estimates the number of patent filings in the city will reach 7,000, but there are only 60 patent attorneys.

As a result, the average annual income for lawyers is about 200,000 yuan (US$26,882) and many make over 1 million yuan a year.

He told Chongqing Evening News that the ratio between demand and supply of patent attorneys is as high as 50 to 1.

"Even in the next five years the undersupply won't be alleviated," says Yuan.

Ji Baocheng, president of Renmin University of China, which began teaching IP courses in 1981 and became the first university to offer IP degrees 20 years ago, says IP work is a fundamental institutional guaranty to the nation's innovation and trained talent should be the foremost on the list.

There are now some 20 law schools and 70 universities offering IP degrees, but the supply is still small, especially with the growth of IP-related demands in recent years.

Liu Chuntian, a professor at Renmin University of China and one of the first professors to teach IP courses, says China should offer more master's degree programs in IP law and the Ministry of Education should support universities, even establishing a foundation to help them train more students in IP.

While it takes a long time grow domestic talent, international expertise may be a quicker solution.

Jurgen Schade, president of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA), said in an earlier talk with Tian of the SIPO, that training talent will become a top priority in cooperation between the two offices and the DPMA will send more German examiners to help teach their Chinese counterparts.

Priorities include experts in biotechnology and computer software.

In April, the SIPO and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) also agreed at a joint seminar that their training organizations need to accelerate cooperation.

In addition, the opening of foreign professional service firms also brings more talent to the country.

In an April visit to China with IPOS, Singaporean patent attorneys already showed interest in working with both Singaporean companies in China and Chinese firms intending to file international patents.

On October 24, Sheppard Mullin Richter &Hampton LLP, one of the largest US law firms in IP, also opened its first overseas office in Shanghai to deal mainly with legal cases.