On January 4th, 2018, the Meeting of Directors of Intellectual Property Offices of China was held in Beijing. Mr. Changyu SHEN, the commissioner of State Intellectual Property Office of the P.R.C (hereinafter referred as “SIPO”) conveyed the important instruction of working hard on IP work.
 
According to the meeting report, during 2017, the number of patent applications of invention was 1.382 million, with a year-on-year growth of 14.2%. SIPO examined and concluded 744,000 cases and the average pendency period steadied to 22 months. PCT filing volume was 51,000, up by 12.5% year-on-year. The number of utility model applications and design patent applications were 1.688 million and 629,000 respectively. The volume of domestic invention patent ownership (Mainland China only) was 1.356 million, and the number of invention patents divided by every ten thousand population was 9.8. 4,565 patent invalidation cases were examined with a year-on-year growth of 15%, of which 4,216 cases were concluded. The number of patent administrative enforcement cases handled nationwide was 67,000, showing a year-on-year growth of 36.3%. From 2016 to 2017, the social satisfaction of IP protection increased from 72.38% to 76.69%. The volume of patent pledge financing reached RMB 72 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 65%. The amount of exports of IP royalties exceeded 4 billion dollars. Among 26,000 enterprises implementing IP standards, the number of demonstrative and preponderant enterprises with an advantage in IPRs reached 2,788. Meanwhile, 112 pilot primary and middle schools on IP education were established nationwide and more than 500,000 IP practitioners were trained. SIPO newly released 20 Chinese Patent Gold Awards, 5 Chinese Design Gold Awards and 870 Award of Excellence, where the winning projects of Gold Awards achieved a newly increased sales volume of RMB 93.9 billion.