At the Press Conference for the 3rd quarter of 2018, the State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) released consolidated statistics on patents, trademarks and geographical indications for the very first time after its restructure.

As reported, in the first half of this year, the number of Chinese invention patent applications was 751,000, and of granted invention patents was 217,000 including 171,000 domestic invention patents. Among the domestic invention patents granted, 159,000 are service inventions, accounting for 93.2%; 12,000 are non-service, accounting for 6.8%. As of the end of June 2018, China's domestic (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) invention patents totaled 1.475 million.

In the first half of 2018, the number of trademark registration applications in China was 3.586 million; the number of examined applications was 3.065 million. As of the end of June 2018, the cumulative number of trademark applications in China was 31.428 million, with a cumulative registration volume of 19.395 million, and the number of valid registered trademarks was 16.807 million. The number of granted geographical indication collective marks and certification marks reached 4,395, of which 171 from abroad. The trademark examination cycle has been shortened from 8 months to 7 months.

In the first half of 2018, 10 applications for protection of geographical indication products China were received, 46 new GI products and 135 new enterprises using GI approved. By the end of June 2018, accumulatively 2,359 GI products are granted protection, including 2,298 domestic and 61 from abroad; 24 national GI product protection demonstration zones are built, and 8,091 enterprises are approved for use of GI signs, and the relevant output value has exceeded 1 trillion yuan.