Last year, China awarded 453,000 invention patents, up nearly 5 percent year-on-year, as the country promises to step up regulations to protect intellectual property in the face of widespread IP abuse charges that have been the subject of ongoing China-US trade spat.
China's National Intellectual Property Administration said that the total import and export of intellectual property fees from January to November 2019 exceeded US$ 37 billion, government media agency Science and Technology Daily reported.
Based on CNIPA's latest figures, exports - and in this case, the amount foreign firms paid for the exclusive use of Chinese IP - was up 19.2 percent annually to US$ 6 billion. This figure indicates an improvement in the IP quality of the country.
China's international patent applications are also on the rise last year with 61,000, up 10.4 percent from 2018. On top of new inventions, some 1.6 million utility model patents were issued in the same year for minor improvements to existing products, while 557,000 patents for ornamental product designs were approved.
According to the patent office, the country will continue to enhance its intellectual property legal framework ... and "step up international cooperation on the protection of IP rights" as key tasks in 2020."
In the current trade showdown between Beijing and Washington, intellectual property protection and forced technology sharing have been the core focus, as the White House officials accused China of stealing American trade secrets and pressuring U.S. firms to pass sensitive technologies to Chinese partners.
The Trump administration disclosed that alleged Chinese theft of American intellectual property costs up to US$600 billion annually to the US economy.
Meanwhile, the US added Huawei Technologies to its Entity List last May, which prohibits US firms from selling components to Chinese telecommunications equipment and smartphone manufacturers.
Trump and his economic advisers said Huawei poses a threat to the U.S. national security; an accusation the company said has no basis.
In an effort to tackle the issue as part of both countries' trade talks, China is also raising penalties for abuses of intellectual property rights, according to a government guideline published in November. Beijing promised to reduce the criminal penalty rates for those who steal IP, but did not elaborate on other details.
The guideline states that China is bent on minimizing frequent IP infringements by 2022 and plans to facilitate compensation for victims of transgressions.
Strengthening IP rights protection, according to the guideline, is the main content of enhancing the system and also the "greatest opportunity to improve China's economic competitiveness."
