As China is attracting more Multinational Corporation, the statistics for the first half of 2021 shows that China IP Office has granted more patents to foreign Multinational Corporation and even more trademark are registered by them. This was announced by Fuguang Heng, deputy head of the China National Intellectual Property Administration’s general office, in a news conference.

Statistics says so

The statistics reveal that from January to June, 339,000 patents for inventions were granted. With these numbers, the grant of patent to the foreign applicants has increased to 30 percent, year on a year basis, totaling the number close to 54000, as per the statistics. While dealing in trademark, 3.72 million trademarks were registered in the first half which also shows an increase of 7.5 percent registration for the foreigners, totaling close to 90000 trademarks. In the statistics, the US applicants have seen a rise of 35 percent for patent and 8.9 percent for trademark.  “The sustainable growth of foreign applications for patents and trademarks means foreign enterprises have confidence in our business environment, with the will to develop business activities and establish their IP layout in our nation,” said Heng. Heng added that China has become better at reviewing IP-related applications and its efforts to promote high-quality IP development have intensified. With this, there has been a considerable reduction of the period for reviewing high-value patents to 13.4 months from 14 months.

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Shu Ge, head of the CNIPA’s strategic planning department, said maintaining high-quality IP development especially that related to core technologies has been the top priority in his work, and he also provided more IP-related support to Chinese enterprises overseas in the first six months of the year. From January to May, the number of patents granted to Chinese enterprises in South Korea, Japan, the US, and European countries kept rising, said Ge.

Comparing the period from January to May 2021, 61,204 patents which include 814 utility models were registered. Out of the said patents, 14,660 patents were attributed to foreign entities which include 84 utility models. Of the specified number, China has occupied 1094 patents and 25 utility models. If we compare the statistics with that of 2020, 56,023 patents were registered of which includes 946 utility models. In that 12,948 patents were attributed to foreign entities of which 807 patents and 45 utility models were occupied by China. If we compare the number of registered patents in the whole of 2020, it was 136,822 of which 2,056 were utility models. In these 31,099 patents including 214 utility models were attributed to foreign entities. In this, China occupied 2,041 patents including 83 utility models.

Growing Business Environment

According to Heng, granted patents, trademarks, and layout design of integrated circuits all grew rapidly year-on-year, reflecting that Chinese market players became more active in innovation, creation, and entrepreneurship, a result of a continuing, profound reform in streamlining administration, delegating power, improving regulation, and upgrading services as well as a result of improved IP examination and efficiency. As of the end of June, the pendency for examination of Chinese invention applications was shrunk to 19.4 months. The pendency for the examination of higher-valued invention applications was shortened to 13.4 months. The average examination pendency for trademark registration was curtailed below 4 months.

Statistics show that in the first half of this year, the number of domestic companies housing invention patents has increased steadily. As of the end of June, there were 270,000 domestic companies owning valid invention patents, an increase of 24,000 from the end of the previous year. In the meantime, granted or registered IPRs of foreign interests continued their upward journey. In the first half of the year, 54,000 invention patents were granted to foreign applicants, up 30%; foreign applicants registered 90,000 trademarks in China, up 7.5%. "This shows that foreign companies have confidence in China's business environment and are willing to execute their business operations and IP plans in China," Heng said.

Author: Saransh Chaturvedi an associate at Global Patent Filing,  in case of any queries please contact/write back us at support@globalpatentfiling.com.