SIPO Makes First Unified Release of Patent, Trademark and GI Statistics
On 10 July 2018, the State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) held a press briefing on work report of SIPO for the first half of 2018, during which major statistics related to patent, trademark, and geographical indication (GI) of the country for the period were released.
This was the first-ever unified release of the mentioned IP areas by SIPO since the announcement of its restructuring in March, according to which SIPO's original functions and roles are expanded to include administering the country's trademarks as well as GIs.
According to the statistics, SIPO received 751,000 invention patent applications and granted 217,000 invention patents during the first half of 2018; among the patented inventions, 171,000 were granted to domestic applicants. In terms of international patent applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), SIPO received 23,000 applications during the first half of 2018 (up 6.3% year on year), of which 21,600 were filed by domestic applicants (up 7.6% year on year).
For trademarks, during the period, 3,586,000 applications for trademark registration were filed in China, and 3,065,000 trademark applications examined, with the average examination cycle further shortened from 8 months to 7 months. As of the end of June 2018, cumulative trademark applications, cumulative trademark registrations, and valid trademark registrations in China amounted to 31,428,000, 19,395,000, and 16,807,000 respectively. Moreover, GIs registered as collective trademarks and certification trademarks in the country reached 4,395 as of the end of June 2018, of which 171 were foreign-related marks.
During the first half of 2018, 10 applications for the protection of GI products were received, 46 GI products approved, and 135 enterprises approved to use exclusive indication of GI products nationwide. As of the end of June 2018, cumulative number of protected GI products in China added up to 2,359, comprising 2,298 domestic products and 61 foreign products.
