BEIJING, July 17 — China has made significant strides in intellectual property (IP) protection during its 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), providing impetus for innovation and high-quality development, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) said on Thursday.
CNIPA head Shen Changyu, speaking at a press conference on reviewing China’s IP progress, outlined the administration’s comprehensive strategy to establish a world-class IP governance system, institutional framework, cultural environment and professional talent pool. “Our clear objective is to establish China as a global IP powerhouse by 2035.”
He emphasized four strategic focus areas: advancing the modernization of the IP governance system and its capabilities, supporting China’s high-level self-reliance in science and technology, cultivating new quality productive forces and modern industrial systems, and promoting high-standard opening-up and market system development.
Through a quality-oriented approach, the CNIPA has refined key performance metrics such as high-value invention patents per 10,000 people, the value-added of patent-intensive industries as a percentage of GDP, the total import and export volume of IP royalties, and IP examination quality and efficiency standards.
“These indicators reflect a more scientific approach to measuring China’s IP progress,” Shen said, adding that the administration will actively engage stakeholders in shaping the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) to ensure practical, innovation-friendly policies that boost industries and benefit public welfare.
As the 14th Five-Year Plan period nears its conclusion, China is clocking up a series of achievements in the transformation and industrialization of patents, IP in green and low-carbon technologies, geographical indication (GI) products and international IP cooperation.
China has effectively promoted the transformation and industrialization of a large number of patents, with the industrialization rate of enterprise invention patents up from 44.9 percent in 2020 to 53.3 percent in 2024.
As of June 2025, China’s number of valid domestic invention patents has reached 5.01 million, which is an increase of 13.2 percent year on year, according to Shen, while ownership of high-value invention patents per 10,000 people has reached 15.3.
Additionally, the dominant position of enterprises in technological innovation continues to be enhanced in China, Shen said.
There were 524,000 domestic enterprises that held valid invention patents in June 2025, by which time the total number of valid invention patents held by those enterprises had reached 3.7 million, accounting for 74.4 percent of the total number in China — an increase of 6.1 percentage points compared to the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020).
China has seen increasingly vibrant innovation in green and low-carbon technologies, with 53,000 invention patents granted in the sector in 2024 alone, said Liang Xinxin, an official of the CNIPA. The 2024 figure, which doubled 2020’s, reflects an average annual growth rate of 19.2 percent.
The clean energy and energy storage sectors showed robust growth, with respective invention patent authorizations rising 34.9 percent and 32.8 percent year on year — the highest increases among all green technology categories, Liang noted.
China has cumulatively recognized 2,861 GI products, according to Shen. The annual output value of China’s GI products increased from 639.8 billion yuan (about 89.5 billion U.S. dollars) in 2020 to 969 billion yuan in 2024, he noted.
A total of 7,424 GIs have been registered as collective or certification trademarks, and over 37,000 business entities have been authorized to use the special GI symbol.
China has established IP cooperation partnerships with over 80 countries and regions. The China-EU agreement on GIs has come into force, realizing the mutual recognition and protection of the first group of listed products, Shen said, adding that China has successfully acceded to the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs.
CNIPA Deputy Commissioner Hu Wenhui noted that the administration treats domestic and foreign enterprises equally in terms of IP protection. In the first half of the year, foreign applicants filed 94,000 trademark applications in China — a year-on-year increase of 7.4 percent, with significant growth of over 20 percent in applications from Germany, Italy and the United States, Hu said.
By the end of 2024, the CNIPA had provided a total of 2,393 guidance services and 6,885 advisory consultations to domestic enterprises engaging in global expansion, helping them reduce litigation costs by 1.32 billion yuan and recover economic losses amounting to 38.04 billion yuan, he said.