In 2003, SIPO received 308,487 patent applications for three types of inventions, showing an increase of 55,856 or 22.1% as compared with 252,631 applications received the previous year.

By December 31,2003, an accumulated number of 1,931,125 patent applications were filed with SIPO. Among them, 1,595,184 were domestic filings, accounting for 82.6% of the total, and 335,941 were foreign applications, accounting for 17.4%.

Since SIPO officially became a member state of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in 1994, by December 31,2003, SIPO received a total of 5,543 international applications. 5,418 international search copies, and established 4,936 international search reports. SIPO also received 2,990 demands for international preliminary examination, and 2,425 international preliminary examination reports. Of the international established applications entering China's national phase, 125,547 filings were for invention patents and 220 for utility models. In 2003, SIPO received 1,171 international applications, 1,198 international search copies, and established 1,169 international search reports. SIPO also received 708 requests for international preliminary examination, and established 656 reports. Of the international applications entering China's national phase, 24,516 filings were for invention patents and 192 for utility models.

Patent filings in 2003 showed the following features: (1) With regard to the number of applications for the three types of patents, the number for invention patents reached 105,318, an increase of 31.3% over 80,232 of the previous year. The number for utility models amounted to 109,115, an increase of 17.2% over 93,139 of the previous year. (2) According to the national and foreign filings, most of the domestic applications still were patents for utility models and industrial designs, however, the proportion of patents for inventions increased, accounting for 22.6%, while most of the foreign ones were patents for inventions, accounting for 84.8%. (3) With regard to the constitution of all patent applications, domestic applications of patents for inventions were 56,769, and 48,549 were foreign applications. For the first time since 1994 becoming PCT Member State, the amount of domestic applications surpass that of foreign ones. For utility models and industrial designs, the domestic applications accounted for more than 92% of the total and almost maintained the same ratio compared with the previous years.

As compared with the year of 2001,the ranking changed with regard to the number of domestic patent applications. The top ten provinces and cities were Guangdong, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Taiwan, Beijing, Shandong, Liaoning, and Sichuan. Fujian.

In 2003, service applications have a faster and steeper increase than the previous year. The number of patent applications filed by domestic enterprises reached 84,117, a rise of 22.0% against 68,962 of the previous year. The number of patent applications filed by colleges and universities was 10,252, an increase of 71.4% over 5,981 of the previous year. And the number of applications filed by scientific and research institutes was 6,998, an increase of 30.2% over 5,373 of the previous year.

By December 31,2003, 125 countries and regions had filed their applications in China. In the year 2003,China received applications from 90 countries and regions, for 9 of which it was the first time to file applications in China. The top ten countries in terms of the number of patent applications were Japan, USA, the Republic of Korea, Germany, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Italy and Sweden.

2004-03-04

2004-03-04