CHINA MADE SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENTS IN IP QUALITY AND EFFICIENCY IN 2019

CNIPA officially issued statistics for the outgoing year related to patents, trademarks, geographical indicators. The numbers of the aforementioned statistics demonstrated that IP indicators’ quality and work efficiency in 2019 had improved greatly.

CNIPA issued patent statistics taking into account two indicators – domestic vs. foreign applicants and the number of invention patents owned by 10,000 people. As statistics show the number of domestic applicants prevailed over foreign ones. In 2019 domestic applicants had nearly 361,000 patents, 344,000 of them were service patents. Huawei, Sinopec, and OPPO are three top Chinese companies, which have leading positions according to the number of invention patents. Furthermore, Beijing is in the first place according to the number of invention patents owned by every 10,000 people, then follow by Shanghai and Jiangsu province.

As for trademark applications in 2019, CNIPA received over 7 million trademark applications. The total number of registered trademarks in Mainland China reached 6.4 million, while only 6,491 Chinese applicants submitted trademark application forms through the Madrid system. The average time for patent examination was 4.5 months and it exceeded the year’s plan formulated by the State Council. The number of trademark oppositions is much lower in comparison with 2018. In 2019 CNIPA received 144,000 requests for trademark opposition, 90,000 were concluded, 361,000 trademark oppositions were under review and 2/3 of them were successfully concluded.

It is also reported that IP administrations under CNIPA’s jurisdiction across Mainland China handled 39,000 patent infringement cases, 13% of patent infringement cases were related to layout designs of integrated circuits.

After CNIPA issued IP statistics for the last year, IP experts had divided 3 distinct features of IP improvements in China. Firstly, the average time for trademark examination had decreased, and it is considered to be an important sign showing the improvement of quality and efficiency of the IP examination process. Secondly, IP policy and market demand go hand in hand. Thirdly, IP improvements in China are owing to the “openness policy line”, which stimulate foreign applicants to file patent and trademark applications in China. Hence, the “openness policy line” reflects the confidence and vitality of foreign investment in China.

Source: http://www.iprdaily.com/article/index/15375.html

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