April 26?was the?World Intellectual Property Day, and Chongqing municipality on Southwest China held a news conference to mark the occasion, revealing key city statistics in intellectual property rights (IPR) protection.

Last year, Chongqing saw 13.21 invention patents per 10,000 people, with a total of 76,206 authorized patents, among which 9,413 were invention patents, 58,410 were utility model patents, and 8,383 were design patents. Chongqing also reported 393 PCT patent applications, a year-on-year increase of 8.3 percent, as well as 719,900 registered trademarks.

In addition, Chongqing has helped formulate 197 national and industry standards, and registered 1,485 scientific and technological achievements. Furthermore, 7,266 technology contracts were registered worth a total of 31.09 billion yuan ($4.74 billion).

To bolster the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle initiative, courts in the two regions signed a memorandum on IPR protection work. Chongqing also established an IPR protection center, a foreign-related IP meditation center, and an IP tribunal.

Courts in the municipality have handled 30,170 IP disputes, ranking highly in western China, and several of which were listed among China's representative cases.