Patents for inventions soar in Ningbo

A visitor stops at the booth of Fotile in an international home appliance expo in September 2018 in Qingdao, Shandong province. Fotile is a famous appliance company in Ningbo that holds nearly 2,200 patents, including 350 patents for inventions. [Photo/IC]

Ningbo is gaining momentum in its innovation-driven development, with the application and authorization of patents for inventions soaring in growth during the first ten months of 2018. 

Statistics from the Ningbo Science & Technology Bureau show the city handled nearly 60,000 patent applications and granted around 37,000 patents from January to October, a year-on-year increase of 21.5 percent and 33.2 percent, respectively.

Among them, applications of patents for inventions exceeded 20,000, up 66 percent year-on-year, and accounted for 34.8 percent of the city's total patent applications during the period, up 9.3 percent from a year earlier. 

The remarkable growth can be attributed partly to the city's vigorous efforts in introducing big research platforms this year, such as the Beihang University Ningbo Innovation Research Institute and the Ningbo Industrial Internet Research Institute. 

In addition, the recent launch of the China (Ningbo) Intellectual Property Rights Protection Center has improved the city's innovation climate.

"The time for patent application and protection has been significantly shortened thanks to the establishment of the center, which encourages companies' innovation zeal and drives their talent cultivation," said Xiao Yong, general manager of the Ningbo-based Zhejiang CRRC Electric Vehicle Co.

The integration of innovation resources and real economy helped boost the profitability of companies in Ningbo, with an added value of nearly 150 billion yuan ($21.4 billion) generated in the city's high-tech industries during the first ten months, up 7.4 percent year-on-year. 

"Innovation is the key to breaking the bottleneck in technology development, so we must strive to develop some key industrial technologies and enhance the innovation capacity of the entire industry," said Li Yonghui, head of the Ningbo Science & Technology Bureau. 

Li added that Ningbo is now committed to implementing the "Technological Innovation 2025" project and aims to realize an eightfold increase of R&D input and high-tech companies by 2020.