As of the end of 2023, the scale of China's intellectual property (IP) talent has increased from 690,000 at the end of the "13th Five-Year Plan" to 860,000. Recently, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) held a routine press conference to discuss the status quo of IP talent.
Building a talent hub, advancing to a higher standard
Zhang Zhicheng, Director General of the Personnel Department at the CNIPA, introduced the "14th Five-Year Plan for Intellectual Property Talent", which focuses on key talent projects in high-level IP talent hubs. Proactive efforts are being made to build high-level IP talent hubs in Beijing, Shanghai, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Initial successes have been achieved in perfecting top-level designs, improving the autonomous talent training system, promoting closer talent exchange and cooperation, and facilitating clear career development paths for talent.
Cai Xin, Deputy Director General of the Beijing Municipal Intellectual Property Office, shared that Beijing has been conducting evaluations for advanced IP professional titles, with a hundred IP talents in various fields receiving advanced titles during the "14th Five-Year Plan". The focus has been on using the IP services industry as a breakthrough point, selecting talents from top patent agencies, and establishing a National Laboratory IP Expert Advisory Committee to issue national laboratory IP management guidelines and promote a list of 68 IP service tasks.
In Shanghai, Tongji University has regularly hosted the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) - Tongji IP Master's Program and the Chinese Government IP Master's Program with the support of the CNIPA, fostering close international talent exchanges. In Guangdong, the construction of a national IP training base has been completed, hosting administrative personnel retraining and key sector training in big data and integrated circuits.
"By the end of 2023, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong each had a per capita high-value invention patent ownership more than double the national average," Zhang stated. The CNIPA will continue to squarely promote the construction of high-level IP talent hubs, leading and driving the development of high-level IP talent teams nationwide, contributing IP strength to high-level self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology.
Cultivating specialized talent for higher level development
Since the "14th Five-Year Plan", IP talent training has been continuously strengthened, systematically carried out over 150 retraining sessions for local IP administrative personnel, and enhanced job performance capabilities. Focusing on cutting-edge topics, training in urgent talent needs has been intensified around new fields and business models such as big data and artificial intelligence, aiding in the cultivation and development of new quality productive forces. Training channels have been expanded, ongoing remote IP training course construction has been effectively carried out, and training coverage has been continuously extended, achieving significant results.
The China Intellectual Property Training Center, as the sole national-level training institution within the IP system, has played a crucial role. Liu Jian, Deputy Director General (Acting Head) of the China Intellectual Property Training Center, reported that in the past four years, the center has organized relevant training aligned with national major strategies, training nearly 2,000 participants; it has organized 19 types of international training sessions, extensively conducting grassroots exchanges on IP.
"Tsinghua University is currently exploring the establishment of a 'Professional Master's Program in Intellectual Property', integrating IP with science, engineering, management, and economics to cultivate interdisciplinary IP talents. Concurrently, we are actively enhancing the internationalization of our talent training efforts. In November 2023, in cooperation with the WIPO, we signed an agreement to launch a new 'Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy' joint master's program, which will start recruiting globally this year, with the first cohort of students enrolling in September," introduced Zhou Guangquan, Dean of the School of Law at Tsinghua University.
Leveraging think tank, highlighting high-end and distinctive features
Modern Chinese-style think tanks are an important component of the nation's soft power. The CNIPA fully utilizes the role of think tanks, continuously pushing for the specialization and high-quality development of high-end and distinctive think tanks.
In March of this year, the fifth session of the National Intellectual Property Expert Advisory Committee was established, comprising 48 renowned experts, including nine academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering. These experts come from various IP fields, and a new batch of experts in new fields and business models such as big data, artificial intelligence, new materials, and new energy have been incorporated.
"This session of the expert committee further established a mechanism for expert advice, and has formed multiple expert recommendations around cutting-edge hot topics such as policies on standard-essential patents and traditional Chinese medicine IP protection," Zhang explained. "Since the '14th Five-Year Plan', committee members have participated in over 700 various IP tasks involving nearly 1,200 person-times, supporting the comprehensive work across the entire IP chain."