Foreigners have more patents granted in first half

China saw the number of patents granted to foreigners and the number of trademarks registered by them grow rapidly in the first half of this year, showing foreign enterprises are optimistic about the Chinese business environment, an official from the country's top intellectual property regulator said on Wednesday.

From January to June, 339,000 patents for inventions were granted in China, with 54,000 granted to foreign applicants, up 30 percent year-on-year, statistics released by the China National Intellectual Property Administration showed.

In the same period, over 3.72 million trademarks were registered in China, with 90,000 of them registered by foreigners, up 7.5 percent year-on-year.

The number of patents granted to applicants from the United States rose 35 percent and the number of trademarks registered by US applicants was up 8.9 percent.

"The sustainable growth of foreign applications for patents and trademarks means foreign enterprises have confidence in our business environment, with the will to develop business activities and establish their IP layout in our nation," Heng Fuguang, deputy head of the administration's general office, told a news conference on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, China has become better at reviewing IP-related applications and its efforts to promote high-quality IP development have intensified, he said.

By the end of June, the time taken to review high-value patent applications had been reduced to 13.4 months, down from 14 months in April.

Ge Shu, head of the administration's strategic planning department, said maintaining high-quality IP development, especially that related to core technologies, has been the top priority in its work, and it also provided more IP-related support to Chinese enterprises overseas in the first six months of this year.

From January to May, the number of patents granted to Chinese enterprises in the US, Japan, South Korea and European countries kept rising, he added.

To protect IP rights and maintain order, the administration launched a campaign against unqualified patent agencies in March.

Lei Xiaoyun, from the administration's IP utilization promotion department, said more than 100 illegal institutions have been blocked and investigations are continuing.