Recently, the Intellectual Property Development & Research Center under the State Intellectual Property Office released the 2013 National IP Development Status Report. The Report indicated the national IP comprehensive development index has been rising steadily. The four development indexes, innovation, implementation, protection and environment, all remained stable, with substantial improvement in a number of aspects. Guangdong, Beijing, Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Jiangsu, etc.ranked the top in IP comprehensive development index all over the country. The top five provinces with average annual increase in IP comprehensive development index from 2007 to 2013 were Jiangsu 7.17%), Anhui (6.99%), Hubei (6.85%), Shaanxi (6.71%), and Liaoning (6.18%). The top five provinces with biggest increase in IP comprehensive development index were Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei, and Fujian.

The Report also indicated with a nationwide steady improvement of IP comprehensive development index, the overall intellectual property development status showed the following characteristics: Firstly, the four indexes, innovation, implementation, protection and environment, all have been developed steadily, with a highlighted  territory feature. The contribution of innovation, implementation, protection and environment to IP comprehensive development index was slightly different. Seeing this aspect from the areas topped the country, Guangdong and Zhejiang had a relatively strong demand in IP protection, while Beijing and Shanghai had a better IP environment. The protection index was higher than innovation index in Jiangsu, Shandong, Hubei, Fujian, Henan, Hebei, Jiangxi, and Inner Mongolia. Secondly, the creation of intellectual property relied mainly on quantity. The intellectual property obtained new achievement in China in 2013. The invention patent applications reached 825,000, which topped the world; there were 22,924 international patent filings filed through PCT were received, which ranked the third place in the world; the trademark applications reached 1,881,500 in total, which ranked the first place in 12 consecutive years in the world; the copyright registrations totaled 1,009,700 which was for the first time the total number beyond 1 million. However, the creation of intellectual property in our country still relied mainly on quantity at present. The IP creation quality index in various areas was much lower than the creation quantity and efficiency indexes. For example, Beijing, with the highest IP creation development index, the creation quantity index was 89.72 and the creation efficiency index was 98.86, while the creation quality index was only 75.36. Thirdly, the protection to IP was strengthened, and Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Fujian achieved remarkable prograss in their administrative protection work. The IP development index was 65.83 in 2013, with an increase of 1.79 compared with 2012. In 2013, the nationwide administrative enforcement organs put 262,000 cases concerning IP infringement and manufacturing and selling of counterfeits on record, among them, 4,550 were transferred to judicial organs, and 5,441 counterfeit dens were destroyed; the nationwide public security organs detected 55,000 infringing counterfeit crimes and captured 59,000 criminal suspects; the nationwide procuratorial organs approved arrest of 14,000 criminal suspects in 9,161 infringement and counterfeit cases, and examined 14,000 prosecution cases involved 23,000 suspected criminals; the nationwide judicial organs concluded 12,000 infringement and counterfeit cases, involved 17,000 people in the effective judgments. Fourthly, the intellectual property environment improved obviously. The IP environment index was 61.74 in 2012 and it reached 67.71 in 2013, with a growth of 5.97, thanks to the continuous optimization of intellectual property system environment, the steady increase of service organizations and personnel year by year, and a rapid improvement of intellectual property right awareness.

It was learned that the Intellectual Property Development & Research Center firstly released the Development Status Report in 2013 and this was the second release. The relevant responsible person of this organization indicated that they would continue to analyze in depth and release the nationwide IP development status report every year in the future. The Report aims to objectively reflect the development status of various intellectual property as patent, trademark, copyright, etc. in China through a continuous improvement of evaluation system, through which to lead a thorough and efficient implementation of the state IP strategy, and to promote a scientific development of intellectual property undertaking in China.

Date: September 3, 2014   
Source: State Intellectual Property Office