Patent awareness of domestic firms is strengthened

It was learnt from the State Intellectual Property Office, as the implementation of IPR strategy, the patent awareness of Chinese enterprises has been strengthened and the capacity of patent creation and utilization has been elevated, eventually forming a batch of head firms with strong competitiveness.

In 2008, the applications of domestic firms represent three "increases", that is to say, first, the number of patent applications is growing fast. In 2007, China had 32,700 enterprise applicants, however, in 2008, the number rose to 40,500, increasing by 23.9%.

Second, average applications of each enterprise are increasing. In 2007, the average applications of domestic firms were 6.83 pieces, but in 2008, the number rose to 7.29 pieces, increasing by 6.7%.

The last feature of enterprises' application is that the amount of enterprises with more than 100 applications is rising. In 2007, 290 firms held over 100 patent applications, but in 2008, there were 420 firms owning such number of applications, with a rise of 44.8%.

Besides, service applications took the majority of the total applications for the first time. It was introduced that, non-service applications have got the upper hand of domestic patent applications for a long time.