A concept picture of intellectual property (IP) Photo: VCG

China has reaffirmed its commitment to providing equal intellectual property rights (IPR) protection for both domestic and foreign companies, as highlighted by data released by the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) on Thursday.

In the first half of the year, foreign applicants filed 94,000 trademark applications in China, up 7.4 percent year-on-year. Notably, applications from German, Italian and US companies all grew by more than 20 percent. The CNIPA accepted 74 geographical indication applications from the Burgundy region in France.

The data fully demonstrates that China's equal and non-discriminatory protection of IPRs for both domestic and foreign enterprises has created a favorable business environment for overseas companies to invest and operate in China, CNIPA Commissioner Shen Changyu told a press conference on Thursday.

According to the CNIPA, China's IPR ecosystem has showed comprehensive improvement in all major metrics in the first half.

As of June, domestic invention patents reached 5.01 million, up 13.2 percent year-on-year, with high-value patents hitting a record 15.3 per 10,000 population. Trademark registrations grew to 48.959 million, up 6.6 percent year-on-year, meaning one in every four business entities now owns a registered trademark.

Chinese enterprises continue to strengthen their position as leaders in innovation, holding 74.4 percent of all valid domestic invention patents. This represents an increase of 6.1 percentage points since 2020.
 　
This aligns clearly with the fact that Chinese enterprises account for three-quarters of all societal research and development investment, showing that their innovation capacity is steadily strengthening and that they have become the primary source of new technological output, according to the CNIPA.

The most dynamic technological innovations have occurred in information technology management methods with 34.1 percent growth in invention patents, computer technologies with 22.7 percent, and medical care technologies with 19.8 percent, all significantly outpacing the average patent growth rate.

Global Times