Recently, the Shenzhen Administration for Market Regulation issued the “Shenzhen 2023 Application Guidelines for Special Fund Approval System Projects in the Intellectual Property Field” (深圳市市场监督管理局关于开展深圳市2023年知识产权领域专项资金核准制项目申报工作的通知).  Per the Guidelines, Shenzhen is offering 80,000 RMB to patent firms for each of their patent attorneys that passed the patent bar and law bar in 2022.  Other jurisdictions have also been proposing or offering rewards for patent agents and attorneys including a district in nearby Guangzhou that had earlier proposed providing a 2.5 Million RMB housing subsidy for intellectual property professionals.

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Specifically, Shenzhen will award 50,000 RMB per person to firms having personnel that obtained the patent attorney qualification certificate from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022, worked for the applicant firm for more than one year and are still employed by the applicant firm when applying for reward. Shenzhen will award an additional 30,000 RMB per person for personnel that also have a legal qualification certificate. 

An additional 10,000 RMB reward is available for personnel employed for more than 5 years from the date they obtained the patent certificate. 

For personnel that obtained the intermediate technical title of intellectual property professional in 2022, Shenzhen will award the applicant firm 30,000 RMB/person.  This reward increases to 50,000 RMB/person for personnel that obtained the senior technical title of intellectual property professional in 2022. Both require that the personnel have worked for the applicant for at least one year.

A response to an inquiry to Mayor Matt Mahan on whether San Jose would issue a similar policy for U.S. patent attorneys has not yet been received as of the time of publication.

The full text of the Guidelines is available here (Chinese only).