China's State Council has issued a plan for the protection and utilization of intellectual property rights (IPRs), specifying development targets, key tasks and special projects for IPR development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030).

The plan states that by 2030, China's overall strength and international competitiveness in intellectual property will be enhanced, with stronger IPR protection and more in-depth international IPR cooperation, ensuring decisive progress in building an intellectual property powerhouse.

By 2035, China's comprehensive IPR competitiveness will rank among the world's top tier, and a world-class IP powerhouse with Chinese characteristics will be basically established.

The plan lays out key tasks in four areas:

•Optimizing and improving the IPR legal system and strengthening foreign-related intellectual property protection.

•Bolstering the commercialization and application capacity of intellectual property, scaling up IPR supply to develop new quality productive forces, and promoting high-quality growth of the intellectual property service industry.

•Upgrading public IPR services and advancing social co-governance of intellectual property.

•Deepening participation in global IP governance and expanding international IP exchanges and cooperation.

Twelve special projects will be launched, covering IPR protection for strategic emerging industries, integrated empowerment of intellectual property and AI, IP-driven regional development, and high-quality IP cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Amid a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, China will improve IPR protection rules for AI, big data, algorithms and other emerging fields, and adopt more robust measures to strengthen intellectual property protection and utilization, Rui Wenbiao, deputy head of the China National Intellectual Property Administration, stated.

By the end of June, China had 2.36 million high-value invention patents, equivalent to 16.8 high-value invention patents per 10,000 people.

The high-value invention patents fall into four categories: patents for strategic emerging industries, invention patents with overseas patent families, patents maintained for more than 10 years, and patents winning the National Science and Technology Award or the China Patent Award.