The top ten Chinese companies in the amount of invention patent filings were as follows: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd (4,906); China Petroleum Chemical Co., (4,405); LETV Holdings (Beijing) Co. Ltd.( 4,197); ZTE Corporation (3,941); Guang Dong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications corp., ltd (3,778); BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd (3,569); Zhuhai Gree Electric Appliance Co., Ltd (3,299); Beijing millet Mobile Software Co., Ltd. (3,280); Nubian Technology Co. Ltd. (2,912); National Electric Net Ltd. (2,784).
The number of domestic invention patents in China was 1103 thousand, and the quantity of invention patents per ten thousand people reached 8. The top ten provinces for the quantity of invention patents per ten thousand people were: Beijing (76.8), Shanghai (35.2), Jiangsu (18.4), Zhejiang (16.5), Guangdong (15.5), Tianjin (14.7), Shanxi (7.3), Liaoning (6.4), Anhui (6.4), and Shandong (6.3).
In 2016, 45 thousand PCT applications were accepted, witnessing a year-on-year increase of 47.3%. Among the accepted PCT applications, 42.2 thousand were domestic and 2.8 thousand were from abroad, representing year-on-year increase of 48.5% and 31.2% respectively. In 2016, the number of province (district, city) with over 100 PCT applications had increased by three as compared with last year to reach 19. Guangdong took the first place with 23.6 thousand applications, and Beijing, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Shandong and Zhejiang had all received over 1000 applications. Applications filed by the above 6 provinces and cities accounted for nearly 90% of the entire country.
In 2016, the number of patent administrative law enforcement cases reached 48,916, witnessing a year-on-year increase of 36.5%. Among these cases, there were 20,859 patent dispute enforcements (including 20,351 patent infringement dispute enforcements) (a year-on-year growth of 42.8%) and 28,057 investigations of counterfeiting patent cases (a year-on-year growth of 32.1%).
In 2016, the Patent Reexamination Board accepted 13,107 reexamination requests and concluded 17,623 reexamination cases; accepted 3,969 invalidation requests and concluded 4,100 invalidation cases.
In 2016, 4,954 people participated in the National Patent Agent Qualification Examination. Until now, the number of patent agencies in China exceeds 1,500 and the number of practicing patent attorneys exceeds 14 thousand.
In 2016, the average concluding period of reexamination and invalidation cases were 11.9 and 5.1 months, 1.8 months and0.7 months shorter as compared with last year.
In 2016, more efforts were made for cracking down patent infringement and counterfeiting, with the concluding rate of various patent cases reaching 97.5%, an increase of 4.3% over last year. With better efficiency in law enforcement, the concluding rate of patent infringement dispute cases reached 94.4%, a year-on-year increase of 0.8%. The ratio between handled patent disputes and handled patent counterfeiting cases was 1 : 1.35.
In 2016, the number of patent enforcement cases in the E-commerce field reached 13,123, witnessing a year-on-year increase of 71.4%. The cross-regional law enforcement collaboration was further strengthened with the establishment of collaborative dispatching mechanism of patent law enforcement in electronic commerce.
(Source: Official Website of SIPO)
