Shanghai has made remarkable achievements in intellectual property protection, and is set to ramp up more efforts on emerging sectors such as information technology, artificial intelligence, high-end equipment, biomedicine, and new materials, officials said at a news conference in Shanghai on Tuesday.

As the city speeds up building it into an international science and technology innovation center, Shanghai has been making constant efforts in IP protection. According to the 2025 White Paper on Intellectual Property Development of Shanghai, patents granted in Shanghai reached 135,500 last year, including 52,800 invention patents, up by 4.29 percent year-on-year. By the end of 2025, valid patents in Shanghai stood at 987,700, and valid invention patents reached 317,500, growing by 13.94 percent year-on-year.

In 2025, Shanghai's trademark applications totaled 360,400, marking a year-on-year increase of 3.21 percent. By the end of the year, the city's valid registered trademarks amounted to 2.93 million, representing a year-on-year rise of 5.04 percent. Since 2020, the city saw the number of high-value invention patents per 10,000 people expand from 29.6 to 65, said the paper.

Among the city's comprehensive efforts to protect IP is the mechanism improvement for foreign-related IP protection. The Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration has led the establishment of a cross-departmental coordination mechanism for foreign-related IP protection, issued the "Guidance Work Plan for Responding to Overseas IP Disputes", and has guided 379 overseas dispute cases. The administration also worked with other departments to establish three new IP service stations in Hong Kong, Jakarta in Indonesia and Malaga in Spain to offer overseas IP dispute response services.

Zhu Qigao, director of Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration, particularly highlighted the city's future efforts on IP protection in the fast-evolving emerging sectors.

"Emerging fields feature rapid technological iteration and a high concentration of innovation, creating an even more urgent need for patent cultivation and expedited grant approval. We have launched a high-quality innovation initiative and implemented a series of high-value patent cultivation and navigation projects to fully support breakthroughs in key technologies within these fields," Zhu said.

Zhu noted that by the end of 2025, Shanghai held 111,800 invention patents in strategic emerging industries, increasing 10.25 percent year-on-year, with the next-generation information technology sector accounting for 60 percent of this total.

The administration also optimized the patent examination mechanisms to improve efficiency, especially in key sectors such as information technology, artificial intelligence, high-end equipment, biomedicine, new materials, energy conservation, and environmental protection. Last year, IP protection and rapid rights protection centers in the city accepted over 17,000 patent fast-track applications, with more than 10,000 of them approved. The average time for authorization was reduced to two to three months, according to Zhu.

"We will continue to provide stronger IP safeguards to help accelerate the development of new-quality productive forces," Zhu said.