The Shanghai-based Youth Daily says because of lack of the awareness of patent protection, many Chinese herbal medicine patents have been registered by foreign companies including many from Japan.
　　
　　It‘s estimated that Chinese companies earn only eight percent of the 40 billion US dollar global Chinese herbal medication market.
　　
　　The paper reports the statistics were released in a forum on Chinese herbal medicine and intellectual property rights in Shanghai and says experts in the field have called for urgent patent protection of Chinese herbal medicines.