China’s invention patent applications reached 1,927,500 in 2025, marking a year-on-year increase of 5.43 percent, according to newly released government data.
The figures come from China’s National Intellectual Property Administration’s 2025 Intellectual Property Statistical Yearbook, which tracks filing trends across application types.
Utility model applications told a very different story, falling to 2,649,201 in 2025, a year-on-year decrease of 16.81 percent from the previous year.
That decline represents approximately 535,000 fewer utility model filings compared with 2024, a substantial drop that signals a notable shift in how applicants are approaching IP protection in China.
The two application categories moved in sharply opposite directions throughout the year, reflecting diverging strategies among both domestic and foreign filers.
Chinese-origin invention filings have shown consistent growth over a five-year period, rising from 1,344,817 in 2020 to 1,672,001 in 2024 and climbing further to 1,774,890 in 2025.
That 2025 figure represents an increase of approximately 6.2 percent over the prior year and a rise of roughly 32 percent across the five-year span since 2020.
Chinese-origin utility model filings fell from 3,178,314 in 2024 to 2,643,090 in 2025, confirming a decrease of approximately 16.8 percent in that category alone.
Foreign-origin invention filings followed a similar upward direction but at considerably smaller volumes, measuring 152,342 in 2020, rising to 156,053 in 2024, before settling at 152,610 in 2025.
The overall picture suggests that while interest in stronger, longer-lasting invention patent protection is growing steadily in China, appetite for utility model filings is contracting at a pace that IP professionals and businesses operating in the region will need to monitor closely.
Utility model patents in China are typically granted more quickly and with less rigorous examination than invention patents, making the decline potentially significant for companies that have historically used them as a faster route to IP protection.
The data, published by the CNIPA, offers one of the most comprehensive annual snapshots of intellectual property activity in the world’s second-largest economy and a major hub for global innovation and manufacturing.