"Though China is a big patent country, it is not a strong one," said Shen Changyu, director of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), at a press conference.

Compared with developed countries, China has fewer patents featuring originality, and high or core value, Shen said.

The country has witnessed a continuous increase in the number of patent applications in recent years.

The government accepted nearly 2.38 million patent applications and authorized over 1.31 million in 2013. The number of invention patent applications was 825,000, up 26.3 percent year on year.

It is the first time in five years invention patent applications took up more than one third of the three types of applications, said Shen. The other two types are utility model and design.

"The patent application structure was further improved in the first quarter of 2014, as nearly 40 percent of applications were invention patent," said Shen.

To improve quality of patents, the SIPO is taking measures to tighten the authorization of low quality patents, increase proportion of invention patents, and favor patents of high technical value and with more promising market prospects, according to Shen.