Latest statistics show that this year from January to October, there were totally 712,300 cases of patent applications, a 12% increase compared with the same period last year.

Recently, SIPO Deputy Director He Hua said in the interview:

In recent years，we enjoyed a relative high closing rate among all patent examination cases. For example, from 2001 to 2008, the closing rate for invention patent examination increased by 30% annually. This year from January to October, more than 150,000 invention patent examination cases were closed, which was a 40.9% year-on-year increase. The number exceeded the total cases closed in 2008. It's forecasted that about 200,000 cases would be closed in invention patent substantive examination.

Moreover, it takes shorter time to conduct the patent examination. For example, in 2001, it used to take 53 months for an invention application to be closed for the first time since the day it entered the substantive examination process. Now the time required dropped to 25.8 months in 2008. This year from January to October, the process for invention patent further shortened to 25 months on average. Patent of utility model examination process shortened from 11 months to 6.1 months; industrial design patent examination process also saw a huge cut on the processing time, from 9.5 months in 2008 on average to 7.2 months this year; Reexamination of patent application and invalidation of patent right also required less time from 15 months in 2005 to 8.2 months this year.

He Hua expressed that SIPO had always given their priority to the improvement of the quality of the patent examination. After a series of intensive research and discussion on the institution and mechanism of the quality management of the examination, we established a scientific and legitimate quality management system, with a quality testing team of 50 senior examiners. This effort had improved the public's satisfaction with the patent examination.

As one of the world top 5 patent offices, SIPO exchanged ideas with other offices on examination services and launched various forms of cooperation with patent organizations from countries or regions in the America, Oceania, Asia, and Africa. Managing Intellectual Property magazine highly commended SIPO's increasing efficiency while maintaining a good quality over the examination services.

He Hua expressed that SIPO would focus its attention on strengthening its examination capability through continued effort in the engagement of electronic information technology's application to increase its efficiency and to vigorously promote patent examination to serve the country, innovation subjects and the public.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Source:SIPO.gov.cn