Recently, SIPO published data of patents in the first three quarters of 2015. During the period, China received 1.876 million applications of the three kinds of patents, up 22.0%. Among them, 709,000 were invention patents, up 21.7%; 779,000 were utility model patents, up 33.6%; 388,000 were design patents, up 4.4%, which were 37.8%, 41.5% and 20.7% of the total respectively.

Among the invention patent applications, 610,000 were filed by domestic applicants, up 24.9%; 99,000 were from overseas, up 5.1%. Among the domestic invention patent applications, 492,000 were service applications, accounted for 80.7%; 118,000 were non-service applications, accounted for 19.3%

In the first three quarters of 2015, SIPO granted 1.176 million patents in total, up 25.8%. Among them, 248,000 were invention patents, up 46.0%; 599,000 were utility model patents, up 18.9%; 329,000 were design patents, up 26.1%.

Among the invention patents granted, 181,000 were domestic, up 52.5%; 67,000 were from overseas, up 31.1%. Among the domestic invention patents, 164,000 were service invention patents, accounted for 90.6%; 17,000 were non-service invention patents, accounted for 9.4%.

According to SIPO, there are three characteristics in the data. Firstly, the quantity of patent applications was growing rapidly, especially the growth rate of invention patents were up 9.5 percent than last year. Secondly, despite invention patent's high growth rate of nearly 50%, the rates of both utility patents and design patents were still higher than invention patents. Thirdly, the proportion of domestic service invention patents applications in domestic patent remained stable at a high level of over 80%, and the proportion of service invention patents granted in domestic patents was over 90%. (Source: China Intellectual Property News)

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