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20 December 2013
China tops the rankings for filings by Chinese residents worldwide and for applications received in the country for all four types of IP tracked by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), patents, utility models, trademarks and industrial designs. The findings were released on December 9, 2013, as part of WIPO’s World Intellectual Property Indicators 2013 report.
The report says that the number of patent applications filed by Chinese residents reached 561,000, with 1.58 million applications filed for trademarks and 1.1 million for industrial designs.
The report also notes that China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) is the only IP office which recorded double-digit growth for patents, trademarks and designs, at 24%, 16.5% and 26.1%, respectively. Francis Gurry, director general of WIPO, says that “China – the recipient of most patent, trademark, and industrial design filings – is the principal force driving global IP-filing growth.”
Chai Haitao, director general of IPR Office of China’s Ministry of Commerce, told CNTV that China will step up enforcement of intellectual property rights in the coming year and increase the scale of punishment. “When it comes to infringement, China has upgraded its trademark law this year, increasing the punishment. China is also working on upgrading copyright law and patent law. We hope that these three laws will help protect the rights of internet companies.”
The report says that the growth of patent filings is the fastest in the past 18 years, while the number of industrial designs grew to the highest on record. “Following the 2009 financial crisis, global intellectual property filings and global economic output have followed diverging paths,” said Gurry. “While economic recovery since the 2009 crisis has been uneven and has failed to bring down unacceptably high levels of unemployment, IP filings have increased at a faster rate than before the crisis.”
