In 2012, China will pay more attention to expediting and cultivating IPR-related service industry to fulfill huge social demands, reported from Conference for IP Office Directors on January 5.

According to Tian Lipu, Commissioner of China's State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), the country will improve patent information public service system and optimize IPR service framework in the new year. A guideline on speeding up IPR service industry will be released to promote patent services inclusive of information retrieval, analysis and early warning, trading, operating, assets evaluation and value analysis, and a batch of specialized service agencies will also be set up to achieve the goal.

2011 saw a positive growth among patent intermediary agencies. By the end of last year, 12,991 persons have been qualified for patent agents, of whom 7,220 have been officially certified; 896 patent agencies have been approved to practice at the same time. 

Tian said that China needs to build a public service framework featured by genuine information, wide coverage, high quality and satisfying feedback to provide professional and internationalized IPR services, while in the next stage, the country will also explore to establish a statistic and monitor system in this regard. [Chinese version is available on Xinhuanet.com]

(Source: IPR in China)