Source: China IP News

China has made remarkable achievements in tightening IP protection, promoting utilization of patents by market players and reforming streamline administration, delegating more powers and improving regulations in the patent sector, according to the China Patent Research Report 2018, formulated and issued to the public by China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) recently.

"In 2018, we expanded the research to 25 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, and three kinds of patents including invention, utility model and design obtained by four kinds of patentees, namely companies, universities, research institutes and individuals who owned at least one valid patent to the end of 2017," according to a principal of Strategy Planning Department of CNIPA.

In terms of patent protection, 10.6% of patentees encountered patent infringement in 2018, lowest since 2012. About 2.1% of patentees were engaged in patent infringement litigation, and 71.1% of plaintiffs obtained compensation, up 9.3% year on year.

Patent protection is not yet fully efficient in some areas such as E-commerce, according to the report. "China should beef up enforcement in E-commerce sector, develop information-based governance in the sector, facilitate to build an interaction system which patentees can inform platform operators of deleting infringing contents, establish a guarantee and counter-guarantee system for IP infringement complaints and set up a punitive compensation system and a system for evaluating actual damages," said Song Hefa, researcher of Institute of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

In terms of patent utilization, the implementation and industrialization rate of China's valid invention patents has remained stable since 2014. In 2018, the two rates above stood at 48.6% and 32.3% respectively. 79.7% of company-type patentees believed patent was indispensable for them to gain ground or stay ahead in their line of business.