Despite the China National Intellectual Property Administration’s (CNIPA) efforts to crack down on “irregular” patent applications, the number of granted utility models climbed 29.5% in 2022 Q1 compared to 2021 Q1. Specifically, the number of utility models granted in this 2022 Q1 was 766,957 versus 591,965 in 2021 Q1. Invention patent grants grew slower at a 5.4% rate from 152,342 to 160,671 granted invention patents.

Design grants actually dropped slightly from 170,778 to 168,800 designs, a 1% drop. 

Foreigners continued to favor invention patents over other types of intellectual property protection with 14.9% of invention patent grants (23,988) going to foreigners versus only .3% of utility models (2,233) and 1.8% of designs (3,022).  Note that the number of invention patent grants to foreigners decreased from 25,120 in 2021Q1, representing a 4.5% drop year on year.

The full dataset is available here (Chinese only).