China is establishing a national intellectual property protection center to cut approval times by 70 percent. As technological competition with the United States intensifies, China aims to strengthen its IP protection.
China has approved the establishment of a national-level intellectual property (IP) protection center in Xiongan New Area, a new city near Beijing, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Saturday. The center will become operational after an eight-month construction period, China's National Intellectual Property Administration said.
In a statement Saturday, Xiongan authorities said that once operational, the center will provide rapid patent examination and one-stop IP services in the next-generation information technology (IT) and new materials sectors. "The center will help companies protect their innovations and accelerate the development of innovation advantages in target industries," the authorities said. "We plan to strengthen IP protection and support collaborative innovation across the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region."
Established in Hebei province in 2017, Xiongan New Area was designed to serve as a development hub for Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. The establishment of the center is part of China's efforts to strengthen domestic innovation and IP protection amid heating technological competition with the United States.
According to the state-run Science and Technology Daily, once the center is operational, the average patent approval period will be reduced from 15 months to less than 3 months. China's National Intellectual Property Administration earlier said the average examination period for invention patents had been reduced to 15.5 months as of the end of 2024. This is the shortest level among countries with comparable examination systems.
By contrast, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) said it took an average of 29.4 months from application to final processing as of May this year. The European Patent Office (EPO) reported in a September report that it took 24.9 months. However, direct comparison is difficult because each agency uses different calculation methods.
With the establishment of this center, the number of China's national IP protection centers will rise to 83. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a total of 1.8 million patent applications were filed in China last year, nearing half of the global total. This is more than three times the number received by U.S. authorities.
