Recently, the just-released "China Intellectual Property Development Status Evaluation Report for 2019" revealed, comprehensive development of IP across the country had achieved remarkable results from 2010 to 2019.

According to the report, since the implementation of the national IP strategy, China has made rapid development in IP creation and become a big IP nation. The report takes 2010 as the benchmark year and sets all 2010 indexes, comprehensive and creation, utilization, protection, and environmental development at 100. Since then, national IP creation and development index went on its upward journey. Another gear was kicked in after 2013, which is now labled as a demarcation point. Before 2013, the average annual growth rate of this index was 5.4% and after, 15.0%. It is fair to say innovation index has picked up speed since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, touching 270.5 in 2019 up 11.7% year-on-year.

In terms of IP protection, IP protection index has gradually increased from 2010 to 2019, with an average annual growth rate of 13.6%. The growth settled for a while between 2012 and 2017, but quickly advanced at speed in the past two years.

At the same time, efficiency and effect of IP utilization has changed for better markedly, in turn driving economic and social development. In 2018, the added value of China's patent-intensive industries reached 10.7 trillion yuan, accounting for 11.6% of GDP. In 2018, the added value of the copyright industry accounted for 7.37% of GDP, up 0.8% from 2010.

The report analyzes IP development in various regions across the nation and concludes that in 2019, of Guangdong, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Beijing, Zhejiang, and Shandong ranked top six in comprehensive IP development index. On the whole, tiered distribution of comprehensive IP development index in the 31 regions of the country is still there. Regional differences are closely related to the characteristics of gradient advancement presented by the country's economic development. IP development in the eastern part is superior to that in the central, northeastern and western regions. In 2019, the development gap between parts of the central and western regions and the eastern region was further contracted, and comprehensive IP development index of Tibet moved up to the fourth tier for the first time.

In the section of international comparison of IP development, the report shows that China's IP development level steadily ranks in the middle and upper portions of the world, and the ranking has rapidly jumped from the 20th place in 2014 to the 8th place. The report selects three primary indicators of IP capability, IP performance, and IP environment for evaluation. It shows that in 2018, the three indicators under the General Index of China's IP development were ranked 5th, 3rd and 23rd in the world respectively. Compared with 2017, the rankings of the two indexes of IP capability and performance remained stable, and the environmental index rose by one place. However, compared with China's IP development capabilities and performance, the IP development environment is still the weak point of China's  IP development.

According to the report, the IP environmental evaluation indicators include three aspects: IP system environment, market environment and cultural environment. From 2014 to 2018, China's IP environmental index has ranked relatively low in the world. In 2018, China's IP environment index, the highest contribution is still the institutional environment index, which reflects the positive progress China has made in the IP system environment in recent years. At the same time, the market environment and cultural environment have also improved.

(Source: CNIPA      Published on 10/12 2020)