Grants for invention patents hit 172,113 in China in 2011, up 27.4%, of which, 112,347 were given to domestic rights holders, increasing by 6.3% year on year and taking up 65.3% in the total, announced at a press conference in Beijing on February 24 attended by Gan Shaoning, Deputy Commissioner of China's State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), who introduced the general situation of invention patent grants in China in 2011 during the meeting.

China has achieved significant progress in IPR sector, making it a good start of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan Period, said Gan. According to the data released, ten largest holders of 2011 newly-granted invention patents among provinces/municipalities are respectively Guangdong, Beijing, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Shandong, Sichuan, Liaoning, Hubei and Shaanxi; top ten cities in this regard are Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Xi'an, Wuhan, Suzhou, Chengdu, Wuxi and Changsha. ZTE，Huawei and Hong Fujin Precision Industrial (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd are top three business owners of those grants, followed by Sinopec, H3C, AUO, BYD, Datang Mobile, SMIC and Inventec accordingly.

As Gan pointed out, the scenery of invention patent grants in 2011 is featured by three momentums: the status reinforcement of enterprises, universities and scientific institutions as major contributors of technical innovation in China, with their invention patents being granted growing to 95,000 in 2011 from 38,000 in 2001; invention patents being mostly granted to high-tech, modern industry, daily consumption and medical industries; a more prominent role of invention patents playing in national economic development.

In the past ten years, a lot of facts have implied the connection among China's GDP, R & D investment and invention patents development: economic development has laid an important foundation for the improvement of patent system, which in reverse greatly inspires and protects technical innovation and also enhances economic development.

By the end of 2011, living patents for invention, indicator of a well-developed patent structure, have recorded 351,288, exceeding patents granted to foreigners in China for the first time, with every ten thousand people in Mainland China now having 2.37 invention patents.

During the conference, officials from SIPO also answered questions regarding patent application and examination.

(Source: IPR in China)