Efforts are being made to ensure that the intellectual property rights (IPRs) of Chinese companies can also be granted and protected overseas. “As more Chinese enterprises go abroad to participate in international cooperation and competition, cross-border protection of IPR has become compulsory for these innovative companies to expand into the international market,” Ge Shu, Director of the Strategic Planning Department with the China National Intellectual Property Administration, told a news conference. Last year, the number of invention patents applied for by Chinese enterprises and individuals as well as granted by major countries and regions in the world reached 46,000, up 14.1% year-on-year, 2.4 times as many as in 2016. Most Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications made and disclosed by Chinese companies and individuals last year focused on computer science, digital telecommunication and audio-video technology, while those on biological materials and organic fine chemicals also grew rapidly.
Statistics provided by the European Patent Office (EPO) showed that it received 17,000 invention patent applications from China last year, hitting a new record, and of those, Chinese companies, such as Huawei, ZTE, Oppo, Baidu and Tencent, were included in the top 50 list of enterprise applicants. “All the figures indicate that our country’s market entities are making more efforts in protecting their IPR overseas,” Ge said. “We also hope all the applications can be reviewed, granted and effectively protected by overseas authorities in a timely manner.”
While encouraging Chinese applicants to better use IPR knowledge to protect their patents overseas, China has also provided more investment confidence for foreign entities by intensifying trademark protection. Hu Wenhui, Deputy Director of the Administration, said that there were fewer than 2,000 trademark applicants from foreign entities in 1983, when the Chinese Trademark Law took effect. “But the number reached 258,000 last year,” he added.
By the end of June, market entities from more than 200 countries and regions had registered and held trademarks in China, of which most come from the United States, Japan and Germany. To continuously stimulate the market’s vitality, he said that the Administration has also paid close attention to regularly cracking down on improper trademark applications, including malicious trademark registration and trademark squatting. As of June, China had 3.9 million valid invention patents, up 17.5% year-on-year, and 40 million valid registered trademarks, up 20.9% year-on-year, the China Daily reports.
