National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of China recently issues the statistical communiqué on the national economic and social development of 2008. In the sections of education and science and technology of the communiqué, NBS releases China's patent application, handling and grant in 2008 and publicizes the statistics of China's effective patents.

Effective patent is included in the statistical communiqué of national economic and social development as a new indicator measuring the patent level for the first time, indicating the effective patent has become an important part of the comprehensive index system of China's economic and social development.

Effective patents refer to those patents that maintain valid by the time when the communiqué is released. In 2005, SIPO started deep researches on effective patent indicator according to the procedure of first research and then argumentation. After two years' experiments, discussions and improvement, the effective patent is formally included into the 2006 SIPO Statistical Communiqué in 2007.

In 2008, SIPO totally handles 828,000 patent applications, including 717,000 domestic applications, accounting for 86.6 percent of the total. By the end of 2008, China has 1.195 million effective patents, including 925,000 domestic patents. By the end of 2008, China totally has 337,000 effective invention patents, including 128,000 domestic invention patents.