1. Patent Documentation Service

Collection and exchange of patent documentation: In the year 2001, the office had received 3,450,000 full-text patent specifications from 28 countries and international organizations. Among them, 2,160,00 were American documentation *at the early stage. Patent search CD-ROMs collected were from 88 countries and international organizations. Totally there were 1689 volumes, 38 kinds of patent gazettes from 26 countries and international organizations. In the year, the office had sent Chinese patent documentation to totally 19 countries and it had also sent the annual report for the year of 2000 to 20 countries and international organizations. According to the request of some national patent offices and international patent organizations, the office had sent 209 Chinese patent specifications in their need.

Collection of non-patent documentation: "Full-text Database for Chinese Academic Periodicals" of China Periodical Net had collected 5300 kinds of periodicals since the year 1994. In the year, "Full-text Databases on Specific Topics for Major Chinese Newspapers", in which over 400 kinds of major newspapers publicized in China since June 2000 were collected, was added to the net. Printing publications collected in the year 2001 including 113 kinds of Chinese periodicals and 45 foreign periodicals. The office also brought 3888 Chinese books and 149 foreign books.

Patent documentation and information service: For the purpose of fully utilizing the collections in the library and patent documentation and information resource on the intranet, and promoting the innovation of the national technology, the office had organized various free training courses to the public in the patent documentation library. Among them, 18 were lectures on patent documentation, 25 were free patent documentation computer search training. The total lecture time had reached 172 hours and the readers attended the lectures were over 1000 person-time. Moreover, the office had provided direct service to enterprises and institutions on documentation service and developed patent documentation training actively. The office had organized training concentrated on patent information search for Military Medicine and Science Institute, Haier Group, Erzhong Group and China Textile Research Institution respectively. The attendants had reached 260. In the year 2001, service means for entrusted work on patent documentation had been improved and strengthened. The office provided various service means including post, fax, express mail, full-text e-scan of documentation and e-mail to meet the different requirements from the users. In the year, the office had finished 7638 entrusted patent specifications, 91 entrusted subject searches and 119 entrusted legal status search.

Promotion of patent information dissemination and utilization. The office, utilizing its advantage in patent documentation resource, provides necessary professional databases and makes patent information analysis to local economy and research and development of enterprises' technology on the basis of processing and streamlining various databases. In the year, the office had established over 100 specialized databases for 20 enterprises, including Haier Group, Military Medicine and Science Institution, Chunlan, Jinling and etc. It had established "Yanglin Agriculture Patent Database" for the China intellectual property information center of Yanglin.

Provide support to the allocation patent documentation resource in the country: It continues to distribute freely EPO and WIPO patent documentation search CD-ROMs to 73 local intellectual property offices and 18 major trial enterprises. It also provides search CD-ROMs of Japanese patent abstract in English to 31 local intellectual property offices.

Patent documentation research work: The 4 series of "Patent Documentation Research" had collected 53 articles around 220,000 Chinese characters. The subscribers were 960. The focus of "Patent Documentation Research" this year was giving report on topics like the information system and network of patent documentation, the development of IPC classification and etc.

Report on international intellectual property information: "Intellectual Property News" was created in January 2001 and it had published 24 issues in the whole year. The main contents of the News include latest development and great events in the field of international intellectual property.

2. Intellectual Property Publications

In 2001, Intellectual Property Publishing House published 168,118 patents for inventions, utility models and designs. Of the total, 55,912 were utility models, 16,937 were patents for inventions, and 44,903 were designs. 50,366 applications for inventions were published pursuant to the law, an increase of 16% over 2000. The Publishing House published 52 issues (or 104,000 volumes) of Chinese Patent Gazettes. It also photocopied 8,558,133 pages of patent specifications and produced one set of CD-ROM containing 97 discs which covered 52 issues of Chinese Patent Gazette and patent specifications.

On November 1, 2001, the governmental web site of SIPO (www.sipo.gov.cn), which was attached great importance and concern to by leaders from various levels of the office and was undertaken and maintained by the publishing house, was opened to the public formally. This has opened up an effective channel of publicizing intellectual property system, disseminating knowledge of intellectual property laws and regulations and disclosing and publicizing patent information to the public. By the end of 2001, the web site had been visited by over 100, 000 person-times and the visiting time for patent search had reached 230,000 person times. As the channel of exchanging opinions between government and the public, the consultation desk of the web site received thousands of questions. Those experts related in the office replied to the questions timely and precisely and were welcomed by the public.

In the year 2001, the book publication work of the publishing house had achieved great development. Within the year, it had published 191 kinds of books, among which 160 were new and 31 were reprints. Intellectual property and law related book accounts for 67 kinds and 124 were other types. During the period of the implementation of newly revised patent law and China's accession of WTO, the office had enhanced its investment to book publication in the field of intellectual property and strengthened its force on administration. A batch of books in the field of intellectual property were published rapidly and with good quality, such as "Patent Law of People's Republic of China", "Implementation Regulations on the Patent Law of People's Republic of China", "Explanation on the New Patent Law", "Examination Guidance" and etc. The first "China Intellectual Property Almanac" was also published and it was a great event in the field of intellectual property.