SIPOheld the third quarter （2018） press conference in Beijing on July 10, marking not just its thirdface-to-face with the press, but its first centralized release of statisticsconcerning patent, trademark and geographical indication after its organizationaloverhaul. In the first half of 2018, the main IP indexes all stay in the fastlane with invention patent filings registering at 751,000 and invention patentgrants 217,000, trademark applications 3,586,000 and GI applications 10.
As saidabove, the first half witnessed 751,000 invention patent applications and217,000 grants, 171,000 of which were granted to domestic applicants. Amongthese granted domestic invention patents, 159,000 were done under employment,accounting for 93.2% of the total, and the remaining 12,000 or 6.8% were non-duty inventions. As of the end of June, China had housed 1,475,000 validinvention patents in total （excluding HongKong, Macao and Taiwan）， the number ofinvention patents per ten thousand population was 10.6. In addition, a total of23,000 international applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty （PCT） were received by SIPO,up 6.3%. The 21,600 PCT applications filed by domestic applicants logged a moreimpressive 7.6%.
In thefirst half, 3,586,000 applications of trademark registration were filed, and3,065,000 applications were examined. As of the end of June, China hadcumulatively received 31,428,000 trademark applications and registered19,395,000 trademarks, 16,807,000 of which are still in force, with one validtrademark owned by every 6.1 market entities. The registration of 4,395collective marks and certification trademarks of GIs were approved, 171 ofwhich were of foreign origin. Trademark examination pendency was constricted to 7 months from 8 months.
In thefirst half, there were 10 applications of geographical indication productsprotection received, 46 geographical indication protection products approved,and 135 companies examined to use the special marks of geographical indicationproducts. As of the end of June, there had been 2,359 geographical indicationproducts under protection, 2,298 domestic ones and 61 foreign ones. There hadbeen 24 national geographical indication products protection demonstrationareas designated and 8,091 companies certified to use these special marks,riding a total protection value of more than 1 trillion RMB.
Fourfeatures could be summed up from the statistics above. The first one is thesteady progress of IP creation and application. The domestic granted and ownedinvention patents increased 6.5% and 19.5% respectively compared with the sametime last year, the number of invention patents divided by ten thousandpopulation increased 0.8 compared with late 2017; the level of trademarkregistration facilitation improved steadily, with the applications of trademarkregistration a year-on-year increase of 57.5%. The second one is that theposition of domestic enterprises invention proprietors is elevated. Among thegranted domestic invention patent and housed ones, the part of enterprisescover 63.8% and 67.2% respectively; the maintenance rate for five years andlonger of domestic enterprises valid invention patent reaches 71.2%. The thirdone is the steady improvement foreign IP applications for domestic enterprises.In the first six months, there were 17 enterprises which submitted more than100 PCT international patent applications each; in the first five months, therewere 2,228 applications of internationaltrademark registration under the Madrid System, representing a year-on-yearincrease of 80.69%, which ranks third in the Madrid Union. The fourth one is the optimization of the IPprotection environment. In the first half of this year, the total number ofpatent administrative cases increases 29.5% year on year, of which patentdisputes cases increases 41.0% year on year; 13,600 trademark illegal cases aresolved with more than 210 million RMB involved in the cases. China is refiningits business and innovation environment. （by Li Qun）
（编辑：孙雅曼 高云翔，编校：崔静思，审读：蔡莹，美编：李羽）