OBJECTIVES It was an unspoken fact that Chinese manufacturers copying patent-protected drugs inappropriately (e.g. aripiprazole (neurology), pemetrexed (oncology), tiotropium bromide (respiratory)). The purpose of this study is to explore this phenomenon among the drugs currently included in the National Drug Lists (NDLs) and trends in the recent years. METHODS Reimbursed drugs from three therapeutic areas (neurology, oncology and respiratory) were identified from the 2012 NDLs. The marketing years of the import (originator) drugs and local ‘branded’/generic drugs were found using the online Drug Future Chinese Marketed Drugs Database (accessed December 2013 to January 2014). RESULTS CONCLUSIONS The low number of local ‘branded’/generic drugs marketed before the imported drugs in recent years suggests that the IP issue in China might have improved since the 2009 health reform. Current results also suggest that respiratory medicine was most popular for inappropriate local manufacturing. It is yet to find out whether this observation was related to the costs of the originator drugs, the market demand, difficulties in copying new molecules due to their complexity, or high cost of manufacturing. These results may act as the basis to further explore future IP issues in China.