Source: China IP News

According to a press conference during a gathering of IP office heads nationwide on January 6, China's campaign in improving IP quality has paid dividends in 2019. New progress has been made in building a sound environment for doing business. IP is playing a more important role in advancing the nation's modernization of governance system and capacity.

In 2019, China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) granted 453,000 invention patents, 1.582 million utility model patents and 557,000 industrial design patents, and the number of invention patents owned by every 10,000 people reached 13.3, completing in advance the goals set in the 13th Five-Year Plan; the number of registered trademarks in China was 6.406 million and the valid registered trademarks totaled 25.219 million, with one trademark owned by every 4.9 market players on average. As of the end of 2019, there were 2,385 geographic indication (GI) products under protection and 5,324 registered GI trademarks; patent and trademark pledge financing registered at 150 billion yuan. The total value of import and export of IP royalties reached 37.19 billion U.S. dollars in the first 11 months of 2019, of which the export amount was 6.01 billion U.S. dollars, up 19.2%. Elevated IP quality kept vaulting financial effectiveness.  

In 2019, quality and efficiency of IP examination got better at a healthy rate with the pendency for high-value patents shrunk to 17.3 months; the average pendency for trademarks was curtailed to 4.5 months, exceeding the target for the year confirmed by the State Council. User satisfaction score on patent examination quality reached 84.8 and social satisfaction score on IP protection stood at 78.98, hitting a new high again. China moved up in the ranks to the 14th in the 2019 Global Innovation Index Report published by the World Intellectual Property Organization.