The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) on December 8 reported some key indicators of the development of intellectual property for the third quarter ended September 30, 2021. 

The volumes of the transactions in import and export of intellectual properties amounted to nearly 280 billion yuan ($44 billion). The volumes of the transactions in export grew relatively more robustly, with an increase of more than 27%. In addition, in terms of patent and trademark pledge financing, the registered amount of national patent and trademark pledge financing reached 240.77 billion yuan ($3.8 billion), a year-on-year increase of 50.6%, which has exceeded the total amount of last year.

The CNIPA began to crack down on “abnormal” patent applications and trademark squatting  to achieve high-quality development at the start of 2021. So far, 815,000 patent applications have been identified as “abnormal” patent applications in 4 campaigns it launched. 93.1% of the “abnormal” applications were instructed to be withdrawn in the former 3 campaigns. 376,000 trademark registrations have been identified as “malicious” trademark registrations, which refer to applications in multiple classes for the registration of excessive amounts of trademarks not intended for genuine use. 200 IP agencies have been identified as unqualified agencies to be subject to monetary penalties and confiscated benefits totaling over 10 million yuan ($1.57 million). In the worst case, the monetary penalty and confiscated benefits reached 1.04 million yuan ($160,000).