China owned 4.015 million domestic valid invention patents by the end of 2023, up 22.4 percent year-on-year, becoming the first country in the world to hold more than 4 million domestic valid invention patents.

It took 31 years for the effective number of invention patents in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) to reach the first one million, and it only took one and a half years to break through the fourth one million. Among the over 4 million valid invention patents, high-value invention patents accounted for more than 40% of the total.

Data show that in China, there were 921,000 invention patents, 2.09 million utility model patents, and 638,000 design patents authorized in 2023. The number of patent review cases concluded and invalidation cases concluded were respectively 65,000 and 7,700. A total of 74,000 PCT international patent applications were accepted. Chinese applicants submitted 1,814 international applications for designs in the Hague.

From Xinhuanet

January 16th, 2024