City grants thousands of patents

Shanghai has made good progress in protecting intellectual property rights, the city government said on Tuesday.

Last year, there were patent applications for some 150,000 products and 92,000 granted. According to local government, 47.5 out of every 10,000 people in Shanghai own patents.

Rui Wenbiao, head of Shanghai’s intellectual property administration, said an online platform providing intellectual property copyright consulting and trading services started operation on Monday.

“With the platform, we want to make property rights transactions as easy as online shopping,” Rui said.

Since it was founded in November last year, Rui added, the intellectual property administration has been studying amending regulations on patent protection to make them better.

Meanwhile, Shanghai is cracking down on crimes damaging intellectual property rights.

Local police cracked down more than 600 cases involving the manufacture and sale of counterfeit commodities last year, with the total amount of money involved in such cases exceeding 2 billion yuan (US$297 million).