At the National Meeting of Directors of Intellectual Property Offices held on January 6, 2022, China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) Director Shen Changyu released some initial data on 2021 intellectual property grants. Specifically,
In 2021, the quantity and quality of intellectual property development indicators have both increased. In terms of creativity, 696,000 invention patents, 3.120 million utility models, and 786,000 designs were authorized, and the number of high-value invention patents per 10,000 people in my country (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) reached 7.5. 73,000 PCT international patent applications were accepted. 7.739 million trademarks were approved and 5,928 applications for the international registration of Madrid trademarks were received. 99 geographical indication protection products were newly recognized; 477 geographical indication certification trademarks and collective trademarks were newly approved for registration. 13,000 integrated circuit layout designs were registered.
The registrations of invention patents and utility models represent an approximate 31% increase from 2020 with 530,127 granted invention patents and 2,377,223 granted utility models in 2020. Note that filing data for 2021 is not available yet but is expected in April 2022 with the release of CNIPA’s annual operating report.
Director Shen also stated,
the examination period of high-value invention patents has been reduced to 13.3 months, the average examination period of invention patents has been reduced to 18.5 months, and the average examination period of trademark registration has stabilized at 4 months.
In terms of irregular patent applications, Director Shen confirmed that CNIPA identified 815,000 irregular patent applications in 4 batches and the withdrawal rate in the first three batches has reached 97%. There were also 482,000 malicious trademark registrations that were cracked down on.
More information is available in the Work Report of the Director of the CNIPA Shen Changyu at the 2022 National Meeting of Directors of the Intellectual Property Office (Extract) (国家知识产权局局长申长雨在2022年全国知识产权局局长会议上的工作报告（摘编)) available here (Chinese only).
