China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) recently released first quarter grant data for 2024. For the first quarter, the number of invention patents granted was 251,882 , a year-on-year increase of 54.6%. The number of utility model grants was 419,451 , a year-on-year decrease of 30.1%. The number of authorized designs was 146,270 , a year-on-year decrease of 20.2%.

Note that utility model grants in 2023 Q1 were already down over 21% year-on-year and utility model grants were down 25.5% for full year year of 2023. While utility models generally were only examined for formalities and subject matter eligibility, the amended Patent Examination Guidelines, effective January 20, 2024, introduced a preliminary examination of utility models for inventiveness that may have contributed to the continuing decline this quarter. In addition, CNIPA continues to crack down on ‘abnormal’ patent applications. 

Also of note, PCT applications for Q1 2024 totaled only 15,135. If China maintains this pace of filing, this could lead to a significant drop in PCT filings for the year as China filed 69,610 PCT applications in 2023 per WIPO, a 0.6% drop. However, China will still likely exceed the US for PCT filings in 2024 as the US filed only 55,678 PCT applications in 2023 per WIPO.

Foreign-originated invention patents grants totaled 23,625 representing 9.4% of the total invention patent grants for Q1 2024. Foreign-originated utility models totaled only 1,302 representing only 0.3% of utility models granted in Q1 2024.

The full data set is available here: 2024Q1Stats (Chinese only).