1. Patent Documentation Service

Collection and exchanges of patent documentation: SIPO collected a total of 1.1 million full-text patent specifications of 30 countries and international organizations in 2003 among which 17.07 million were early documents of Japan, patent search CD-ROMs from 88 countries and international organizations, and patent gazettes of 49 kinds from 28 countries and international organizations. In 2003, SIPO sent the Chinese patent documents to 20 countries, and sent the patent specifications as required by some patent offices and international patent organizations, meanwhile, sent the Annual Report of 2002 of SIPO to 20 countries and international organizations.

Collection of non-patent documentation: The Chinese Academic Periodicals Full-text Database of the Chinese Periodical Web site included 5,300 kinds of periodicals since 1994. In 2003, the Chinese Periodical Web site established a new database of the full-texts of the Chinese major newspapers, which included 430 kinds of major domestic newspapers issued and published since June 2000. Foreign database: Chemical Abstracts, collecting over 9,000 major science periodicals and 803,500 latest documentation of 45 patent offices. EMBASE collected 5,400 periodicals related to biomedicine and pharmacy. Those databases were opened for examiners to provide the Intranet search service. The publications collected in 2003 included 108 kinds of the Chinese periodicals and 212 kinds of foreign periodicals, and bought about 10,000 Chinese and foreign books.

Equip Super Star Digital Library and Lexis-Nexis that had  3.1 billion documents of law, politics and economy. Super Star had 540,000 Chinese publications from 1990.

Patent documentation and information service: Due to the SARS outbreak in the first half of 2003, the public service of SIPO's documentation library was seriously impacted and closed for a while. However, For the purpose of making full use of patent documentation and information source in the library and promoting technological innovation, SIPO make full use of electronic and Internet means to receive and send documentation. About 12,000 readers and users came to the library to consult, search and read. During the SARS outbreak, the library also held a training course on patent documentation with CIPTC.

To promote the utilization and dissemination of patent information: In 2003, SIPO took a better advantage of the patent documentation, processed and integrated all databases so as to provide special databases and make analysis on patent information for local economic development and technological R & D in enterprises. Finish installation of Petrochemical Patent Database for Lanzhou Petro China and Changchun Pharmacy Patent Database and update data for Wuhan light valley and Xi'an Yangling. Installing Jinan Computer-Controlled Machinery Patent Database. Testing Chongqing Motorcycle (Automobile) Patent Database, Shenyang Equipment Manufacturing, Baotou Rare Earth, Chengdu IT and Shanghai IC patent databases. During the SARS outbreak, the SIPO sent the R & D center for National Command for Fighting SARS the SARS-related Database, offering our share of contribution to the State's war against SARS.

Report on international intellectual property information: In 2003, 62 issues of the Intellectual Property Newsletter, 72 issues of Intellectual Property Express were published, among which 6 were special issues focusing on the latest development and important events in the international intellectual property field.

Patent documentation research work: The four issues of the Patent Documentation Research (Quarterly) included a total of 37 articles around 184,000 words, with 1,083 subscribers. Its supplementary monthly periodical the Development on Classification was published 10 issues including a total of 33 articles around 100,000 words. The Patent Documentation Research focused on the report on IPC development, patent documentation analysis and other topics in 2003.

2. Intellectual Property Publications

In 2003, the Intellectual Property Publishing House published 255,942 patents for inventions, utility models and designs, according to law, among which 68,530 patents for utility models, 35,934 patents for inventions and 74,006

patents for designs, were granted and announced to the public, and 77,472 applications of patents for inventions with an increase of 32% over 2002 in the total amount. 53 paper issues of the Patent Gazette with 69,820 volumes were published. 13,170,343 sheets of patent specifications were copied. In 2003, the Electronic Publication System went into operation, significantly increasing the quality and efficiency of publication. From 2003, publications of patent specifications were on DVDs. 53 issues of DVD of the Chinese Patent Gazette. The government web site of SIPO, www.sipo.gov.cn, published information of patents for inventions, utility models and designs, to the public according to the legal requirements on publishing dates. In order to enable the public to gain IPR information from the government site, the site was revised for several times with the addition of many contents. Every day about 7,000 hits were logged on the homepage of the web site, and about 35,000 patent search requirements were carried out. The House started operation of publication upon request service to satisfy the need of the public. Publish 105 types of patent gazettes using digital printing.

In 2003, a total of 222 categories of books were published, among which 136 were new, and 86 categories of books were reprinted. The published books, IPR Law Collection of the PRC (Chinese and English), WTO TRIPs FAQs, Patent Filling Basics (Fourth Edition), IPR in China (Pictorial), China Intellectual Property Yearbook 2002 had achieved both great social and economic benefits. Illustrated IPR ABC won the third prize of the Fifth National Science Education Works, an event organized by the National News and Publication Administration.

Approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology and National News and Publication Administration, the House and China Inventions Association published the trial version of a journal titled China Invention and Patent.