Edited and translated by Ms. Haoyu Feng and Mr. Hui Wang of Chofn IP
On July 9, the China National IP Administration (CNIPA) released its half-year statistics on patent, trademark, GI, integrated circuit layout as well as China’s IP trend and development represented by the statistics at its routine third-quarter press conference in Beijing.
In the first half of 2020, China’s main IP index met the expectation and the IP industry kept stable development, with the main statistics as follows:
A total of 683K invention patents were filed and 217K invention patents were granted, including 176K invention patents granted that filed by domestic entities. Of the granted invention patents filed by domestic entities, 169K are employment patents, accounting for 96%, and 7K non-employment invention patents, 4%.
The top three domestic companies (not including companies of Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan) for granted invention patents are Huawei (2,772), Oppo (1,925), and BOE (1,432).
By June 2020, China’s valid domestic invention patents (not including companies of Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan) amounted to 1.996M or 14.3 invention patents per 10K persons. During the first half of 2020, the top three provincial regions for holding invention patents per 10K persons are Beijing (141.5), Shanghai (56.1), and Jiangsu (31.9).
A total of 29.5K PCT applications were received, with an increase of 22.6% over the same period of last year, including 26.8K applications filed by domestic companies, an increase of 20.7%.
The top three PCT filing provincial regions are Guangdong (10.9K) Beijing (3.8K), and Jiangsu (3.3K).
A total of 26.2K patent re-examination requests were filed and 25.7K requests were concluded. 2.6K patent invalidation requests were filed and 4.3K invalidation requests were concluded.
The average examination duration of invention patent is 20.3 months, 15.2 months for high-value patent, 6.4 months for utility model patent, and 3.2 months for design patent.
During the first half year, 4.284M trademark applications were filed and 2.629M trademarks were registered. By June 2020, the valid trademark registrations amounted to 27.414M.
The Chinese applicants’ 3,875 international trademark registrations were received under the Madrid system, an increase of 36% over the same period of last year. By June 2020, the Chinese applicants’ valid international trademark registrations amounted to 41K.
During the first half year, 166K trademark review requests were received and 192K review cases were concluded. The trademark examination duration has been stably limited to an average of 4.5 months in maximum.
During the first half year, the CNIPA granted approval to 322 enterprises to use GI on their products and granted approval of 364 GI trademarks.
By June 2020, approval was granted to 2,385 GI products, 8,811 enterprises were granted approval to use the exclusive signs. The GI trademarks totaled 5,682.
During the first half year, 5,176 applications for integrated circuit layout were filed, an increase of 78,2% over the same period of last year, and 5,262 certificates were issued, an increase of 111.6% over the same period of last year.
During the first half of 2020, administrative decisions were made on 5,320 cases of patent infringement disputes.
The statistics of the first half of 2020 represent four characteristics:
The trend for China’s domestic patent and trademark applications is generally stable.
The growing number of domestic enterprises’ patent applications shows the position of domestic enterprises is further consolidated.
The scale of GI use expands gradually.
The overseas IP filing grows steadily.
