China Issues a Report on the Status of National Intellectual Property Agency Industry Development
China’s National Intellectual Property Administration published the Report on National Intellectual Property Agency Industry Development Status (2022) on May 11, 2023. In 2022, 645 new patent agencies were established in China, with 5 international patent agencies allowed to open resident representative offices. There were 4,520 patent agencies (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) by the end of 2022, 63,311 patent attorneys, 31,347 practicing patent attorneys, and 4,405 litigation representatives. The number of applicants for the 2022 patent attorney qualification examination was 51,511 with 6,775 passing (a 13.5% pass rate vs. 46.3% in the United States).
Intellectual Property Agency Industry Development In China
At the moment, the number of national patent agencies is continuously increasing. The yearly growth rate of the number of patent agencies exceeds 20% between 2016 and 2021. The number of patent agencies increased at a slower rate in 2022, but remained quite high. By the end of 2022, the total number of patent agencies had increased by 586 year on year, with an annual growth rate of about 15%.
There were 71,466 trademark agencies operating nationally by the end of 2022. 64 trademark agencies were shut down in 2022, and 7,569 new trademark agencies were registered. However, there are only 18,096 registered trademark agencies countrywide following a re-registration procedure in 2023 Q1, including 16,921 that passed the review and 1,175 new agencies. All registered trademark agencies were required to formally affirm their commitment to refraining from bribery, unlawful employment, serving as an agent for fraudulent trademark registration applications, hoarding trademarks, and other transgressions by signing a letter of commitment.
China has had a sharp increase in the number of competent patent attorneys over the past 10 years. From 2013 to 2015, there was an annual growth rate of more than 20%; by the end of 2016, there were more than 30,000 patent attorneys; from 2017 to 2020, there were more than 5,000 additional patent attorneys; and by the end of 2021, more than 60,000 individuals had earned patent attorney qualifications. By the end of 2022, 63,311 individuals will have earned their patent attorney qualifying certificates, a 254% increase from 2013.
The number of practicing patent attorneys in China has similarly demonstrated a pattern of strong expansion over the last 10 years. In 2014, there were over 10,000 practicing patent attorneys; in 2019, there were over 20,000 professional patent attorneys, or 20,192; and in 2022, there were 31,347 practicing patent attorneys, up 16.8% from 2021.
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– You could see How To Register a Trademark in China here.
– You could visit here to see the Procedure of Trademark in China.
– You could visit here to check the Required documents for filing a trademark in China.
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