It was known from Liaoning Intellectual Property Office on February 14 that the patent applications and grants both reached record high: patent applications in 2010 were 34,218 with a year on year increase of 32.6%; patent applications for inventions reached 9,884, growing by 38.7% compared with the same period last year, ranking the seventh in the country. By the end of 2010, the patent applications in the province have reached 241,766 while the patent grants hit 120,532 on an accumulative basis.

Last year, by enhancing enterprises'abilities on cultivation of core technologies and their competitiveness on intellectual property, Liaoning has achieved rapid growth in the patent applications for inventions, utility models and designs, among which, patent for inventions took up 28.9%.

During the eleventh Five-Year Plan period, the average annual growth of patent applications and grants in Liaoning reached 16.9% and 22.5% respectively; the average annual increases in patent applications and grants for inventions were 24.8% and 18.2%, overfilling the target of 10% set at the beginning of the period. The patent applications for inventions in 2010 mainly came from technical fields including materials, metallurgy and material chemistry, representing the industrial structure of the province.

With policies implemented to enhance the enterprises'ability in independent innovation and measures that subsidize local businesses for their fees paid in patent applications for inventions, the structure of patent applications in Liaoning is improving year by year. In 2010, service invention patent applications in the province occupied 63.2% in the gross applications with a year on year increase of 55.0%, among which applications delivered by industrial and mining enterprises took up 41%, growing by 60.4% compared to the same period last year, revealing enterprises have become the main contributor in patent applications in the province.

Source:IPR in China