5 million patents: China shows off unprecedented technological power

The 5 million patent milestone marks China's ambition to lead, creating great competitive pressure on the US, Japan and the entire world technology industry.

A humanoid robot at a robot company in Shenzhen, southern China's Guangdong province, June 25, 2025 - Photo: XINHUA

The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) has just announced the core achievements in the country's intellectual property development over the past five years. Specifically, the number of utility patents in China has broken the 5 million mark, becoming the first country in the world to achieve this achievement.

The number of international patent applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) continued to rank first in the world for the sixth consecutive year. The Global Innovation Index 2025 ranked in the top 10 for the first time, with the "Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou" innovation cluster ranking first in the world.

CNIPA spokesman Heng Fuguang said that since 2020, China's intellectual property system has made breakthrough progress in six aspects: top-level design, institutional reform, rule of law guarantee, chain protection, service utilization, and international cooperation.

The added value of patent-intensive industries accounts for 13.04% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The social satisfaction level on intellectual property protection increases from 80.05 points in 2020 to 82.36 points in 2024.

Liang Xinxin, Director of the CNIPA Strategic Planning Department, said that during the 14th Five-Year Plan, China's intellectual property industry has reached a high-quality, high-efficiency, and high-standard development level. Many core indicators have been exceeded and laid a solid foundation for the development of the entire industry in the coming period.

As of the end of June, the number of valid invention patents for over 10,000 people in China reached 15.3 million, exceeding the planning target. The number of valid invention patents in strategic emerging industries was more than 1.4 million.

In terms of economic contribution, the efficiency of intellectual property rights conversion continues to improve. The added value of patent-intensive industry and the added value of copyright industry account for 13% and 7.5% of GDP, respectively. The total annual import and export value from intellectual property rights fees reaches nearly 400 billion yuan (about 56 billion USD).

For China's intellectual property development in the coming period, CNIPA has put forward a series of targeted measures to develop new quality production forces, improve innovation capacity and intellectual property system.

Specifically for the main force of private economic innovation, CNIPA issued "Implementation Measures to Promote Private Economic Development in the Field of Intellectual Property", providing comprehensive support for private enterprises in four aspects: innovation, protection, use and service.

This measure is based on the fact that the private sector accounts for more than 90% of China's high-tech and new-tech enterprises. This approach will help reduce the cost of innovation and intellectual property protection for private enterprises through initiatives such as improving the efficiency of censorship, providing "one-stop" intellectual property protection services, etc., thereby helping enterprises convert the results of innovation into actual production forces.

In terms of finalizing new industry regulations for new fields, CNIPA has issued revised guidelines for patent assessment, which are expected to take effect early next year. It is also the first time that China has set up a separate section on AI and big data, which will highlight AI-related technical solutions such as data collection or establish rules to comply with legal requirements, social ethics and public interests.

In addition, for violations of the law in the field of intellectual property rights, CNIPA coordinated with the Ministry of Public Security and the General Department of National Market Supervision to launch a 3-month thematic rectification campaign, focusing on 7 main types of violations such as failure to strictly comply with and manage the origin, failure to adopt strict investigation measures, and failure to publicly notify violations to promote creative development and high-quality development of the intellectual property industry.

Currently, CNIPA is coordinating with relevant parties to develop the 15th Five-Year Plan on Intellectual Property, focusing on four core focuses including high-quality development, innovative development, economic construction and high-level foreign opening.

VNA

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/5-trieu-bang-sang-che-trung-quoc-pho-dien-suc-manh-cong-nghe-chua-tung-co-20251201085523887.htm