The Statistical Analysis Report on the Patents of the Core Industries of the Digital Economy (2024) was issued by the CNIPA on July 29, analyzing the invention patent authorization, validity, and international comparison of the core industries of the digital economy in 2023 across the world and in China, and conducting statistical analyses of the development trend from 2016 to 2023.

According to the report, in 2023, the number of invention patents authorized for the core industries of China's digital economy was 406,000, a year-on-year increase of 21.2%, accounting for 44.1% of the number of authorized invention patents, up 13.5% from 2016. As the end of 2023, the effective quantity of invention patents in the core industries of China's digital economy amounted to 1.953 million, which accounts for 39.1% of the effective quantity of invention patents; among them, 1.602 million were domestic, accounting for 39.2% of the effective quantity of domestic invention patents.

The features are mainly as follows:

1. Global innovation in core industries of the digital economy is highly active, and China outperformed in market vitality and innovation capacity. in 2023, the global invention patent authorization of the core industries of the digital economy increased by 11.7% year-on-year, 2.8% higher than the year-on-year growth rate of global invention patent authorization; from 2016 to 2023, the average annual growth rate of global authorized invention patents reached 7.3%, which is 2.1% higher than the average annual growth rate of global invention patent authorization (+5.2%) in the same period.

2.The digital product manufacturing industry is the focus of global patent layout, and the digital factor-driven industry is the hotspot of global innovation growth. As of the end of 2023, the effective number of global invention patents of the digital factor-driven industry have had the fastest year-on-year growth rate (+24.4%), followed by the digital technology application industry (+23.1%) and the digital product manufacturing industry (+20.7%).

3. The overseas patent layout of China's core industries of digital economy has gradually expanded, with the ranking of tripartite patents rising to No.3 in the world. Overseas invention patent authorization of China's core industries of digital economy has increased from 21,000 pieces in 2016 to 48,000 pieces in 2023, and the ranking has risen from the 6th in 2016 to the 3rd in 2023, showing the emerging trend of “technology going overseas” of China's core industries.

4. More enterprises has participated in digital technology innovation, and foreign countries pay more attention to the patent layout of digital technology in China. In 2023, a total of 64,000 enterprises were authorized to obtain invention patents in the core industries of the digital economy in China, an increase of 14,000 in comparison with the previous year, and a year-on-year growth of 27.7%, which is higher than the year-on-year growth rate (+20.4%) of the number of enterprises authorized to obtain invention patents.

From CNIPA

July 29th, 2024