In the first half of the year, the number of foreign invention patent applications in China reached 78,000, up 8.6 percent year on year, according to the National Intellectual Property Administration (NIPA) at a press conference held on July 9.

This indicates that foreign countries are enthusiastic about investing in China and sharing China’s development opportunities, as well as indicating that global innovation entities are full of confidence in China's intellectual property protection and business environment.

In the first half of the year, the number of foreign trademark applications in China reached 127,000, with an increase of 15.4 percent year on year. Japan, the United States, and Germany are the top three applicants for invention patents in China, and the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom are the top three in trademark applications in China.

By the end of June, China had 12.5 invention patents per 10,000 people, fulfilling the country's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) ahead of schedule, said Hu Wenhui, spokesperson for NIPA.

The structure of invention patent applications in China has been continuously optimized. In the first half of the year, the proportion of service inventions reached 91.2 percent, an increase of 5.7 percentage points over the same period in 2018. The number of individual invention patent applications decreased by 46 percent year-on-year, which continues to decline.