In order improve the service level of intellectual property protection in Guangzhou’s Nansha District, the Guangzhou Nansha District Market Supervision and Administration Bureau proposed paying those that acquired the Chinese patent attorney qualification certificate 20,000 RMB.  The proposal is from an August 19, 2022 draft entitled Guangzhou Nansha New District (Free Trade Zone) Intellectual Property Support Measures (Draft for Comment) (广州南沙新区（自贸片区）知识产权扶持办法（征求意见稿)).  Other handouts include up 1,000,000 RMB for winning national and provincial awards for patents, trademarks and copyrights. This is despite CNIPA’s policy of cancelling all subsidies for patent filings and grants.

Article 3 proposes monetary awards as follows for patents, trademarks, copyrights, and IC layouts:

Article 3 Encourage high-quality creation of intellectual property rights:

(1) Those who have won the Gold Award, Silver Award, and Excellence Award of the China Patent Award will be rewarded with 1 million RMB, 500,000 RMB and 200,000 RMB respectively.

(2) Those who have won the Gold Award, Silver Award and Excellence Award of Guangdong Patent Award will be rewarded with RMB 500,000, RMB 200,000 and RMB 100,000 respectively; those who have won the Guangdong Outstanding Inventor Award will be given a reward of RMB 100,000.

(3) Those who have won the China Trademark Gold Award and the China Copyright Gold Award will be rewarded with 1 million RMB and 1 million RMB respectively.

(4) For the successful registration of “geographical indication trademark”, “certification trademark” and “collective trademark”, subsidy of 200,000 RMB, 100,000 RMB and 100,000 RMB will be given to each trademark respectively.

(5) If the layout design of integrated circuits is successfully registered with the China National Intellectual Property Administration, 3,000 yuan/RMB will be subsidized after the announcement of grant is made.

Article 8 provides for a one time bonus for obtaining the patent attorney qualification certificate:

Support the cultivation of intellectual property talent. A one-time reward of 20,000 RMB will be given to each person who has worked in the district and paid social security for one year, and obtained the national patent attorney qualification certificate or the title of senior intellectual property attorney.

Patent firms can also get monetary awards:

Article 9 To promote the development of the intellectual property service industry:

(1) For a newly established or newly introduced patent agency or branch, if the total number of patent applications of enterprises or individuals in the agency area reaches 50 (including no less than 20 invention patents) within one year from the date of approval or filing,  one-time settlement reward of 100,000 RMB will be given.

(2) For intellectual property service institutions whose annual main business income reaches 2 million RMB, 5 million RMB, and 10 million RMB(inclusive) or more, and whose intellectual property service income accounts for more than 50% of the total operating income, they will be granted respectively one-time rewards of 200,000 RMB, 500,000 RMBand 1 million RMB.  Those who have won this award will only be given the difference between past amount and current amount.

(3) A one-time support of 500,000 RMB will be given to newly recognized or newly introduced national intellectual property service brand institutions; a one-time support of 300,000 RMB will be given to newly recognized or newly introduced national intellectual property service brand cultivation institutions; A one-time support of 100,000 RMB will be given to the wholly-owned subsidiaries established by intellectual property service brand institutions in the district.

Comments can be submitted here. The full text of the proposed Measures can be found here (Chinese only). 

As of the time of this writing, no response has been received from the Office of Mayor Liccardo of San Jose on whether he plans to implement a similar policy here.