In the first half of 2011, the number of patent applications in Ningbo, a city of southeast China's Zhejiang Province, reached 24,365, up 116.3% year-on-year, in which, 1,684 were on invention patents, 8,206 were associated with utility models, 14,475 were related to designs, increasing by 25.2%, 65.2% and 192.3% respectively; a total of 13,745 applications were granted, including 780 invention patents, 5,655 utility models and 7,310 design patents, growing by 85.7%, 20.5% and 8.1% separately.

It is worth mentioning that the number of invention patent grants hit the historic high record, accounting for 5.67% of the total amount compared with 4.7% in 2010 and 3.9% in 2005.

Local government has attributed the dramatic growth in invention patent grants to the fast patent development in enterprises, universities, science and research institutions.

Since 2008, business entities in the city have started attaching more importance to invention patent applications rather than that of utility model and design.

（Source:IPR in China）