China vigorously pursues transformation, industrialization of patents

BEIJING -- China has effectively promoted the transformation and industrialization of a large number of patents, with the industrialization rate of enterprise invention patents up from 44.9 percent in 2020 to 53.3 percent in 2024, the country's top IP official said on Thursday.

Shen Changyu, head of the China National Intellectual Property Administration, unveiled the data at a press conference, where he presented achievements in intellectual property (IP) during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) and responded to questions from the media.

As of June this year, the number of valid domestic invention patents had reached 5.01 million, an increase of 13.2 percent year on year, according to Shen, while ownership of high-value invention patents per 10,000 people had reached 15.3.

The country had collected about 48.96 million valid registered trademarks by June 2025, a year-on-year increase of 6.6 percent.

In addition, the dominant position of enterprises in technological innovation continues to be enhanced in China, said Shen. There were 524,000 domestic enterprises that held valid invention patents in June 2025.

The total number of valid invention patents held by these enterprises had reached 3.7 million -- accounting for 74.4 percent of the total number in China, an increase of 6.1 percentage points compared to the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020).

Such progress was highly consistent with the fact that research and development (R&D) investment by enterprises accounts for three-quarters of total social R&D investment in China, said Shen. This indicates that the innovation capability of enterprises is continuously improving, and that they have become the main source of new technology generation, Shen added.

The three fields with the highest growth rates of valid domestic invention patents in China by June 2025 were information technology management methods, computer technology and medical technology, featuring year-on-year rises of 34.1 percent, 22.7 percent and 19.8 percent, respectively. These figures were significantly higher than the average growth rate of valid domestic invention patents, Shen revealed.