Across China: Beijing

Trademark record

China this year topped the 1 million mark in trademark applications, officials said at a news conference hosted by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) on Sept. 1

The 1 million applications filed represent a 153 percent year-on-year increase.

China now ranks No 1 in numbers of applications, applications examined and living registered trademarks.

Li Jianchang, director general of the SAIC Trademark Office, said his office will implement the outline for the national IP strategy, particularly as it applies to trademarks.

In 2008, China completed examinations of 750,000 trademark applications. By comparison, the number of completed examinations in 2008 was 400,000 for the United States, 119,000 for Japan and 80,000 for the European Union.

IPR financing

The State Intellectual Property Office initiated a second round of its pilot Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) financing program this year.

The initiative will allow six Intellectual Property (IP) administrations in Chengdu (Sichuan), Wuxi (Jiangsu), Wenzhou (Zhejiang), Yichang (Hubei), Guangzhou (Guangdong) and Dongguan (Guangdong) to begin the program in their regions.

This year's program began in September and will be completed in three years. The regions will design programs to ensure the efficiency of IPR financing for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and promote efforts to commercialize SME innovations.

The initiative was first introduced in 2008.

Global patents

New reports show the number of patent applications worldwide in 2007 totaled 1.85 million -- 3.7 percent more than in 2006.

It was anticipated that the number of patent applications in 2008 would also increase.

The number of patent applications in 2007 for China, Japan and the United States accounted for 59.2 percent of the global total.

Since 2005, the annual increase in industrial design applications has ranged from 10 percent to 100 percent. The number of industrial design applications totaled 621,000 in 2007, a 15.3 percent increase over 2006.

China accounted for 43.1 percent of the world's industrial design applications in 2007.

Book fair deals

The 16th Beijing International Book Fair was recently held in Beijing.

Traders from China signed 12,656 copyright letters of intent (versus 11,264 from overseas traders) and agreements (compared to 1,392 from overseas traders) -- up 10.52 percent.

The ratio of inbound and outbound agreements was 1:1.29.

(China Daily 10/12/2009 page9)