According to the preliminary statistics of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), European Patent Office (EPO), Japanese Patent Office (JPO) and Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), patent applications of China submitted to US, EU, Japan and Korea continued to increase fast and steadily.

In 2010, the numbers of the applications of China submitted to USPTO, EPO, JPO and KIPO were 6,552, 2,049, 1,001 and 496 respectively, which were increased by 7.1 percent, 27.7 percent, 12.3 percent and 16.4 percent year-on-year respectively.

The increase rate of China's patent applications of inventions applied to US, Japan, EU and Korea was higher than that of their own patent applications. The numbers of patent applications handled by JPO and USPTO were dropped by 7.1 percent and 1.1 percent respectively, while those of EPO and KIPO were increased by 11.9 percent and 2.4 percent on year-on-year basis respectively.

In the term of application channel, according to the statistics, more than 70 percent of China's external patent applications were submitted through Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). It was learned that the PCT applications would enter into the national phase and the number of China's patent applications would be raised in major countries and regions steadily.