CNIPA Released 2018 Annual Data (2019-01)

China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) held its first press conference of 2019 in Beijing to release annual statistics on patents, trademarks, geographical indications and layout-designs of integrated circuits (layout designs) on January 10, 2019. 

In 2018, 1.542 million patent invention applications were filed; while 432,000 patent inventions were granted in China, of which 346,000 domestic patent inventions.  Among the domestic patent invention granted, there were 323,000 service inventions, accounting for 93.3%, and 23,000 were non-service inventions, accounting for 6.7%.  The top 3 domestic enterprises (not including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) with the largest number of granted patent inventions were Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (3,369), China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (2,849), OPPO Guangdong Mobile Telecommunications Co., Ltd. (2,345).

CNIPA received a total of 55,000 PCT international patent applications, which represented a 9.0% increase on a year-over-year basis. A total of 808,000 patent invention applications, 1.874 million utility model patent applications, and 667,000 design patent applications were closed throughout the year. There were 38,000 patent reexamination requests, of which 28,000 were closed. The number of invalidation requests were 5,000, among which 4,000 were closed.

In 2018, 7.371 million trademark applications were filed, while 5.007 million trademarks were registered in China, of which 4.797 million were domestic. The number of applications for Madrid international registration of trademarks was 6,594.  A total of 8.043 million trademark applications were closed, and the average examination period for trademark registration was shortened to fewer than 6 months.  A total of 322,000 applications for various types of trademark review and adjudications were received, and 265,000 were closed.  The trial time for trademark rejection and reexamination case was compressed to fewer than 7 months. 

In 2018, the protection of 67 geographical indication products were approved, 961 geographical indication trademarks were registered, and 223 enterprises were approved to use special signs for geographical indication products.

In 2018, China National Intellectual Property Administration received a total of 4,431 applications for layout design, constituting a 37.3% increase on a year-over-year basis. CNIPA issued 3,815 certificates for layout designs, which represented a 42.9% increase on a year-over-year basis.

As shown, in 2018, there were 77,000 domestic patent administrative enforcement cases, which represented a 15.9% increase on a year-over-year basis.  Among them, 35,000 were patent disputes (including 34,000 patent infringement disputes), which constituted a 22.8% increase on a year-over-year basis; 43,000 patent counterfeiting cases were investigated, increasing by 10.9% on a year-over-year basis. 31,000 trademark violation cases were investigated, with a case value of 550 million yuan.  The total import and export of intellectual property royalties exceeded 35 billion US dollars.  The total amount of patent and trademark pledge financing reached 122.4 billion yuan, which was a 12.3% increase on a year-over-year basis. Among them, patent pledge financing amounted to 88.5 billion yuan, which constituted a 23% increase on a year-over-year basis, and 5,408 pledge projects, increasing by 29% on a year-over-year basis. 

(Adapted from CNIPA’s website)