10 years for first law

From the decision for legislation to the promulgation of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China in 1990, it took more than 10 years to make a few core intellectual property laws. It is precisely those laws that have now promoted the unprecedented application of the time-honored international rules of intellectual property in China, where not long before they were completely alien.

SIPO has accepted more than 5 million applications for three kinds of patents in the past 25 years.

In the past decade, invention patent applications from China and 147 countries worldwide have grown 22.3 percent each year on average, more than five times the global average in the same period.

From this January to September, invention patent applications reached 260,128, rising 21.2 percent year-on-year, while international filings through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) totaled 9,111, growing 66.8 percent over a year ago.

1 million trademarks

China accepted a total of 684,000 applications for trademark registration in the first eight months of this year, an increase of 31 percent over a year earlier. The full-year number is expected to exceed 1 million for the first time.

During the same period, 9,867 applications designated to Chinese territory were filed under the Madrid international trademark registration system, while Chinese enterprises filed 1,090 applications for international registration under the system, growing 46 percent year-on-year.

China has also accelerated copyright legislation and amendment work.

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China has not only strengthened the copyright protection on the Internet and digital environment to meet the needs of the time, but also launched national campaigns to crack down on Internet infringement and piracy. These efforts have clearly improved the market environment in copyright protection.

The implementation of the intellectual property system has stimulated Chinese people's creativity, and strengthening of the innovative capacity has in turn promoted China's economic development.

In 2009, China's total R&D spending ranked among the top five in the world. The investment totaled 1.62 percent of the country's GDP.

Nearly 30 percent of the country's total exports were high-tech products, while the production scale of copyrighted creative cultural work surpassed 2 trillion yuan ($301.6 billion), up 15.5 percent over the previous year.