China Ranked as No. 1 in the World for 6 Consecutive Years in the Number of Patent Applications (Jan-2017)

According to the statistics of the State Intellectual Property Office of the P.R.C. (SIPO), the number of invention patent applications received by the SIPO in 2016 increased by 21.5% from the previous year to 1.339 million, and for six consecutive years China has been ranked as No. 1 in the world in the number of patent applications.

The number of decisions of registration of invention patents by the SIPO in 2016 was 404,000; among them, the number of invention patent registrations within China increased by 14.5% from the previous year to 302,000.  Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. was at the top ranking of the number of patent applications in 2016, and State Grid Corporation of China was at the top ranking of the number of patent registrations.

The number of international applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) via the SIPO increased by 47.3% from the previous year to 45,000, out of which 42,000 applications were filed in China (an increase of 48.5% from the previous year) and 2,800 applications were filed from overseas (an increase of 31.2% from the previous year).  A total of 49,000 administrative enforcement cases have been handled, in which more than half of the cases relate to investigating and handling the patent counterfeiting and the remaining cases relate to patent disputes.  Among the patent disputes, more than 20 thousand cases relate to patent right infringements.

(China New, revised version)