The National Heads of IP Administrations Meeting was held in Beijing recently. The meeting reviewed the main intellectual property work in the fruitful year of 2023, released some key numbers regarding Intellectual Property and deployed the key tasks in 2024.

In the outgoing year, IP legislation had marked advancements. IP legal protection was strengthened. The legislative process was sped up with the completion of the amendment of the Rules for the Implementation of the Patent Law, and the legislation and amendment of other policy and legal documents. The examination policy system was further improved with the amendment of the Patent Examination Guidelines and other agency regulations.

IP examination quality and efficiency were continuously upgraded resulting in the growing satisfaction of innovators. Profited from better examination capacity, examination pendency has constantly declined with the average period for examination of invention patents cut to 16 months. Examination quality also went up with the examination completion accuracy rate for invention patents hitting 94.2%, and the patent examination satisfaction index reaching 86.3 reading points, staying within the satisfaction perimeter for 14 years in a row. The passing rate for trademark examination, opposition, and review after sample check tapped above 97%, a great reflection of proven quality.

In 2023, the number of granted utility models decreased by 25.47% year-on-year, while the number of inventions increased by 15.36%. Specifically, a total of approximately 921,000 invention patents were granted in 2023 (a year-on-year increase of 122,653), approximately 2,090,000 utility model patents were granted (a decrease of 714,155 year-on-year), approximately 638,000 design patents were granted (a decrease of 82,907 year-on-year), approximately 4,383,000 trademarks were registered (a year-on-year decrease of 1,794,000), and approximately 11,300 integrated circuit layout designs were registered.

Authors:

Bing Xiao: As a patent attorney/engineer, Mr. Xiao focuses on patent prosecution. He has successfully handled hundreds of patent filings and prosecuting cases covering various technical fields, ranging from Mechanical Engineering, cars, motocycles, to children’s safety seats and spraying devices. Mr. Xiao has also represented clients in patent re-examination cases. 

David Liu: David Liu, a New York attorney and Chinese patent agent, has more than 10 years of legal experiences in both the U.S. and China. David has significant experience representing multinational clients in patent litigation, patent prosecution and trade secret litigation throughout IP Courts, CNIPA and PRB in China, and USPTO and PTAB in the United States.