On July 10, 2018, the State Intellectual Property Office (hereinafter referred to as the SIPO) held a regular press conference for the 3rd quarter of 2018 in Beijing. It is understood that this is the third press conference held by the SIPO this year, and that it is also the first time that the SIPO releases statistics for patents, trademarks and geographical indications to the public since it has been reconstructed. The journalists learned from the press conference that in the first half of 2018, China’s major intellectual property indicators achieved rapid growth and showed a good development momentum, in which the number of patent applications for invention and the number of granted patents in China rose to 751,000 and 217,000 respectively, and the number of registration of trademark applications was 3.586 million as well as 10 new applications for products protected by geographical indications were accepted.

The data released this time showed that in the first half of this year, the number of patent applications for invention in China was 751,000; the number of granted patents was 217,000, of which 171,000 were domestic granted patents for invention including 159,000 service inventions, accounting for 93.2%, and 12,000 non-service inventions, accounting for 6.8%. As of the end of June 2018, China’s domestic (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) patents for invention totaled 1.475 million, and the number of patents per 10,000 people reached 10.6. In addition, in the first half of this year, the SIPO accepted a total of 23,000 international patent applications filed by means of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), up 6.3% percent year over year, of which 21,600 were from China, up 7.6% percent year over year.

During the first half of 2018, the number of registration of trademark applications in China was 3.586 million, and the number of trademark examinations was 3.065 million. As of the end of June 2018, the number of trademark applications in China was 31.428 million in total with trademarks registered in total reached 19.395 million, and the number of valid registered trademarks was 16.807 million, that is, on average every 6.1 market entities had one valid trademark; the approved geographical indication collective marks and certification marks were 4395, of which 171 was from abroad. The period of examining trademark registration has been shortened from 8 months to about 7 months.

During the first half of 2018, China has newly accepted 10 applications for products protected by geographical indications, newly approved 46 products protected by geographical indications, and newly approved 135 enterprises using products protected by geographical indications. By the end of June 2018, there were 2,359 products protected by geographical indications, including 2,298 domestic products and 61 foreign products; 24 national GI product protection demonstration zones have been built; 8091 enterprises have been approved for the use of special signs, and the relevant output has exceeded 1 trillion yuan.

It is reported that the statistics for patents, trademarks and geographical indications in the first half of 2018 mainly exhibited four characteristics. First is China made steady progress in IP invention and utilization. The domestic granted patents for invention and the ownership of domestic patents for invention respectively increased by 6.5% and 19.5% year over year, and the number of patents for invention per 10,000 people increased by 0.8 compared with the end of 2017; the level on facilitating trademark registration continued to increase, and the number of registration of trademark applications increased by 57.5% year-on-year. Second is the status of innovators in domestic enterprises continued to consolidate. Among the domestic granted patents for invention and the ownership of domestic patents for invention, the proportions of patents from enterprises accounted for 63.8% and 67.2% respectively; effective patents for invention in the domestic enterprises maintained at 71.2% for over 5 years. Third is the number of overseas intellectual property applications from Chinese enterprises has steadily increased. In the first six months of this year, the number of domestic enterprises who submitted more than 100 PCT international patent applications reached 17; in the first five months of this year, the number of applications for the Madrid International Registration of Marks reached 2,228, up 80.69% year over year, ranking third in the Madrid Union. Fourth is China’s protection of intellectual property has been further optimized. In the first half of this year, the total number of patent cases handled by administrative organs increased by 29.5% year-on-year, of which patent disputes increased by 41.0% year-on-year; 136,000 trademark violations of laws or regulations were investigated and handled with a value of over 210 million yuan. China has further shaped a good business environment and innovative environment.

At the press conference, heads of related departments of the SIPO answered questions from journalists on issues such as improvement in patent quality, protection for geographical indication products, strengthening of IP law enforcement, and increase in the quality of IP examination and examination efficiency.