Shenzhen remains mainland's leader in PCT, trademark filings

Shenzhen, a young innovative city in South China, has maintained its national leading position across major intellectual property indexes this year, with double-digit growth in most areas.

The market regulatory department of the city, which oversees IP issues, has improved the legal environment for IP protection and taken new measures to further stimulate motivation in companies toward new technologies, said senior officials at the department.

According to the official statistics, a total of 28,000 companies filed 219,000 patent applications in Shenzhen in the first three quarters of this year, posting a year-on-year increase of nearly 17.2 percent. At the same time, about 164,000 patents were granted domestically, up about 34.5 percent from a year before. Both ranked first among big cities in China.

The city's international applications filed via the Patent Cooperation Treaty continued to grow during the period from January to September this year, up 22.7 percent from a year before. The city currently ranks in first place among major mainland cities for PCT filings, the 16th consecutive year it has done so.

Meanwhile, the city's trademark applications have surged by roughly 20 percent year-on-year, the official figures show.

Shenzhen is stepping up efforts to improve its IP protection system to shield new technologies and support the city's quality development, said Xia Kunshan, a senior official of Shenzhen Administration for Market Regulation.

Dubbed China's Silicon Valley, Shenzhen has seen remarkable growth in innovative companies in a wide range of fields in recent years, including artificial intelligence, new-generation information technology and biomedicine, driving demand for intellectual property protection.

In 2019, scientific research and development input in Shenzhen hit nearly 133 billion yuan ($20.3 billion), accounting for 4.9 percent of the city's GDP, a level matching some developed countries.

The city implemented a regulation on technological innovation on Nov 1, that has been widely seen as an important local rule that can encourage and protect scientific innovation.

For example, it is stipulated in the regulation that no less than 30 percent of the city government fund for research and development should go to fundamental research and applied basic research annually－the first mainland city to take such an action.

The rule follows the revision of the city's regulation on IP protection in July, which was in effect from March 2019 and aims to establish the strictest IP protection system for the city's innovation-driven development.

The revision includes the introduction of a punitive compensation system and an increase in the compensation cap.

chenhong@chinadaily.com.cn