Last year, China approved a total of 172,113 invention patent applications, up 27.4%. Beijing newly added 15,880 issued invention patents, making it rank 2nd across the country (only second to Guangdong province with a balance of 2,362).
Invention patent applications in Beijing hit 45,057, taking up about 60% of the total. Those patents were mainly associated with high-tech sectors including machinery, electronics, telecommunications, biotechnology, pharmacy, chemical and photoelectric technology. While, the top ten sectors of invention patent grants across the whole country last year were semiconductor devices, mobile communication, computer and biomedicine, and etc.
Gan Shaoning, deputy commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office, analyzed that there was a large overlap of high-tech sectors in terms of patent applications filed by domestic and foreign entities in China, indicating that the developing process of domestic entities in this regard did not fall behind their foreign counterparts.
Of all the invention patent grants, over 110,000 were filed by domestic applicants, up 6.3% and taking up 65.3% of the total. As of now, China has owned 350,000 gross living invention patents, exceeding those possessed by foreign entities in China for the first time.
Gan said, "Although our country is now enjoying a rapid growth of invention patent applications and grants, there is still a gap between domestic entities and their foreign counterparts in some high-tech fields such as optics and pharmacy."
Over the past years, it took quite a long time to approve a patent, for example, patents on designs or utility models needed about half a year to be viewed, and invention patents even needed three or four years to be passed, which meant a huge time cost for enterprises that were eager to use their technology to produce commercial goods.
Since last year, the review period of patents on inventions and designs in China has been shortened to 2.3 months and 2.6 months respectively. Feng Xiaobing from the SIPO stated that relevant departments have made great efforts in this regard.
Furthermore, in 2011, the SIPO signed PPH pilot program agreements with patent offices in Japan, Germany and South Korea, providing a fast review process for domestic enterprises to apply patents in foreign countries.
(Source: IPR in China)
