China becomes largest receiver of patent applications

Updated: July 25, 2017 Source: Belt and Road Portal
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The State Intellectual Property Office announced in July that the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) international patent applications it received in the first half of this year rose 16 percent year-on-year. China's PCT patent applications submitted to countries along the Belt and Road routes also increased by 17.8 percent year-on-year during the same period.

President Xi Jinping pointed out during a key economic meeting in Beijing on July 17 that China will improve its business environment, improve its IPR protection laws and rules, increase the IPR review quality and efficiency, expedite the institutional construction of IPR protection in the emerging industries, and impose more severe punishment upon unlawful acts of IRP infringement.

The SIPO issued the Administrative Methods on Patent Priority Review which will be enacted on August 1. The new methods will ease the review applicants’ burden and is conducive to improving the business environment and the approval efficiency.

According to Francis Gurry, director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization, China has now become the world's largest applicant of patent, trademark and industrial design, and the IPR is evolving into a new driving force and an effective institutional guarantee of the progress of science and technology in China.

China's PCT international patent application has maintained a double-digit growth every year since 2002. WIPO's report said the number of PCT international patent applications China received last year hit 45,000, up 47.3 percent year-on-year, making China one of the three largest application receivers in the world for four years consecutively.

Editor: zhangjunmian