DALIAN, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- The number of invention patent applications on the Chinese mainland exceeded 1.23 million during the first ten months of 2020, up by 11.2 percent year on year, according to the National Intellectual Property Administration (NIPA).

China also saw 55,000 applications filed and accepted via the World Intellectual Property Organization's Patent Cooperation Treaty System during the 10-month period, Shen Changyu, head of NIPA, said at the opening ceremony of the 12th China International Patent Fair. The fair took place on Wednesday in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning Province.

China's total amount of intellectual property pledge financing hit 166.4 billion yuan (about 25.16 billion U.S. dollars) during the 10-month period, a year-on-year increase of 35 percent, and is likely to exceed 200 billion yuan for the whole year.

In the first eight months of 2020, the country's import and export volume of intellectual property royalties reached 29.13 billion U.S. dollars, up by 4.2 percent year on year, of which the export volume was 5.58 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 26.4 percent year on year.

"Intellectual property rights (IPRs) provide strong support to high-quality economic development," Shen said, noting that China will make more efforts to strengthen IPR protection and significantly improve the efficiency of the transfer of sci-tech achievements.