Last year, China's invention patent grants reached 217,105, an increase of 26.1% on a year-on-year basis, in which grants on domestic invention patent amounted to 143,847, up 28% and accounting for 66.3% of the total invention patent grants in 2012. Of all the grants on domestic invention patent, 125,954 were on service invention, taking up 87.6%, according to statistics released by the State Intellectual Property Office in a recent news press in Beijing on February 21st.

Last year, the top ten provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) by the number of invention patent grants were Guangdong (22,153), Beijing (20,140), Jiangsu (16,242), Zhejiang (11,571), Shanghai (11,379), Shandong (7,453), Sichuan (4,460), Hubei(4,050), Shaanxi (4,018) and Liaoning (3,973).

The top ten cities listed in descending order were Shenzhen (13,139), Hangzhou (5,513), Nanjing (4,408), Suzhou (4,382), Guangzhou (4,026), Xi'an (3,475), Wuhan (3,233), Chengdu (3,112), Wuxi (2,513) and Changsha (2,182).

The top ten local enterprises in this regard were Huawei (2,734), ZTE (2,727), Hong Fu Jin Precision Industry (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. (1,099), China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (1,044), Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (530), BYD Company Limited (510), Huawei Device (347), H3C Technologies Co., Limited (318), China Mobile (303) and Chery (293).

As of the end of 2012, China's domestic invention patents in force, an indicator representing patent quality and market value, accumulated to 435,151 with every ten thousand people owning 3.2 such patents.

Gan Shaoning, Deputy Commissioner of the SIPO, concluded the features of China's invention patent grants in the press that the accumulated amount of the grants in the country broke one million; enterprises played a key role in creating innovative technologies; invention patents increasingly promoted economic growth; invention patent grants continued to be centralized in terms of geographical distribution; patent protection in some key technological field needed to be enhanced.

（Source: IPR in China）