Author:IPR in C… Source:IPR in China Hits:895 Time:2012/5/10
Lately, the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) publicized 2011 Annual Report of Chinese Patents in Force (hereinafter referred to as the Report), which shows that as of the end of 2011, China had owned 2,740,000 pieces of valid patents and 84.1% were domestic patents.
Based on the Report, the valid patents in China have been keeping rapid increase in recent years and the component thereof has been optimizing. Till the end of last year, the valid invention patents in China had reached 697,000 pieces, up 23.4%, of which 351,000 were owned by domestic entities or individuals. Besides, invention patents for every 10,000 people in China hit 2.4 pieces.
The innovative ability of Chinese enterprises are gradually improved. Till the end of 2011, domestic enterprises had owned 1,230,000 valid patents and the proportion to domestic valid patents exceeded half of the total for the first time, reaching 53.4%.
The Report also showed that as of the end of 2011, the first five places concerning the amounts of valid invention patents were Guangdong Province, Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu Province and Zhejiang Province. Particularly, the invention patents for every 10,000 Beijingers were 26.8 pieces.
Despite the rapid increase of invention patents, the valid invention patents in China are still much less than the United States and Japan. According to the preliminary statistics, up to the end of 2011, the United States owned 2,114,000 pieces of valid invention patents and Japan owned 1,542,000 pieces of valid invention patents.
Moreover, though domestic valid patents grow fast, the gap with those overseas still exists. 8.2% of domestic valid invention patents were used over 10 years while the proportion overseas reached 32.8%. The invalid invention patents in 2011 in China were used no longer than 7 years while those overseas were usually used more than 10 years.
