Source: China Daily

Intellectual property has become a major factor in market competition, said He Xuwen, director of the member services department of the Patent Protection Association of China.

"Our country has attached great importance to IP development, resulting in improvements in the IP field," He said at the release of a PPAC ranking of the most influential entities, counties and people in China's innovation landscape on Tuesday.

Fifty innovation entities ranging from enterprises such as smartphone manufacturers Vivo, Oppo and Samsung, and universities including Zhejiang University and Tsinghua University made the list.

"IP is a universal legal safeguard system and the rankings show that our government has provided equal protection for innovation entities from home and abroad," He said, adding that enterprises play an active role in innovation in China.

"We categorized both universities and enterprises as innovation entities on the list to encourage universities to commercialize and industrialize their research results."

In addition, 50 counties and districts in cities such as Ningbo, Guangzhou and Chengdu were included on the list.

"As a basic administrative unit in our country, a county-level economy provides a glimpse into local development," He said.

A county's performance in its IP can directly reflect IP's role in industrial clusters and local socioeconomic development, he added.

Li Manyu, director of the training and consulting department of PPAC, said, "We worked out the rankings by comprehensively analyzing the collected data concerning creation, operation, protection, management and achievements in the IP field."

In 2017, PPAC released a list of the most influential figures in China's IP field involving international organizations, enterprises and institutions.

This year's 10 most influential people ranked on the annual list include Chen Hongbing, head of the World Intellectual Property Organization's China office, Fang Jiancheng, vice-president of Beihang University, and Liang Zhixiang, vice-president of internet giant Baidu.

Li said that PPAC will continue to expand its coverage of the rankings as well as making efforts to push IP development in China.