On April 24, six municipal departments of Qingdao, namely the Administration for Market Regulation, the intermediate court, the protectorate, the public security bureau, the bureau of culture and tourism and the customs, jointly briefed on the city’s efforts to promote and protect intellectual property rights.

Over the recent years, Qingdao has beefed up efforts to stimulate the vitality of innovation, and maintained a sound momentum of development in both the quantity and quality of intellectual property creation. As indicated by data, Qingdao leads Shandong Province in terms of patents for invention, trademark registration, the total ownership of valid patents for invention, the ownership of valid patents for invention per 10,000 population, the number of PCT international patent application and the total number of valid registered trademarks, and also comes out in front in China.

According to the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2023 released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Qingdao moved up for a fourth consecutive year in 2023 in the global top 100 science and technology (S&T) cluster ranking, soaring from the initial 80th place to the current 23rd and becoming one of the fastest-growing Chinese cities.  (Wu Shuai)