Recently, the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) issued the White Paper on 2013 Chinese Intellectual Property Protection.
According to the Paper, 2013 witnessed a significant increase of patent fillings in China, with a total number of 2,377,000, an increase of 15.9% as compared to that of the previous year. Among all the patent filings 825,000 were related to inventions, a growth of 26.3%. It also showed that China continued to rise in patent examination capabilities. The substantial examination of applications for invention patents in 2013 amounted to 355,000, an increase of 3.1% compared to that of 2012. In addition SIPO received 29,924 international applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, a rise of 15% compared to the year earlier.
With regard to trademarks and copyrights, there was also a rapid increase in the applications and registrations in 2013.
In terms of the IP administrative enforcement, a total of 262,000 cases related to IP infringement and production and sales of counterfeit goods were handled in 2013, 4,550 cases transferred to judicial departments. Cases related to infringement and counterfeit of IP handled by Chinese public security departments were up to 55,000, in which 59,000 criminal suspects were arrested. Procuratorate organs across China arrested 14,000 suspects involved in 9,161 IP infringement cases. A total of 12,000 criminal cases related to IP infringement and counterfeiting were concluded by judicial organs across China.
