As of March 2025, Guangdong Province had 219,600 registered foreign-invested enterprises, the highest number in the country. In the first quarter, 5,620 new foreign-invested enterprises were established, reflecting a year-on-year increase of 17.06%.
These figures were released during a press conference on intellectual property rights held in Guangdong on April 24.
(Photo: Southcn.com)
According to Chen Xinlie, director of the Guangdong Administration for Market Regulation (Guangdong Intellectual Property Rights Administration), the province has strengthened its efforts to protect the intellectual property rights of foreign-invested enterprises. This includes enhancing the handling of patent administrative adjudication cases and promoting the delegation of patent administrative adjudication responsibilities.
Chen noted that Guangdong handled a total of 1,433 administrative adjudication cases in 2024, including those involving foreign-invested enterprises.
Simultaneously, law enforcement efforts in the realm of intellectual property rights for foreign investments have been intensified. A collaborative force for intellectual property rights protection at trade fairs has been established, with expert teams stationed at the Canton Fair to provide rapid resolution of patent and trademark disputes involving foreign-invested enterprises.
Guangdong is also accelerating the establishment of fast-track examination and priority review channels for patents. To date, 15 national-level intellectual property rights protection centers and rapid response centers have been approved to offer expedited patent pre-examination services, assisting innovative entities, including foreign-invested enterprises, in swiftly obtaining patent authorization.
By the end of 2024, Guangdong had 792,300 valid invention patents, 367,700 high-value invention patents, 30.47 million PCT international patent applications, and 9.06 million valid registered trademarks, all ranking first in the country.
In 2024, the province granted 692,600 patents, received 23,400 PCT international patent applications, registered 824,500 trademarks, and recorded 332,200 copyright registrations, maintaining its leading position nationwide.
Regarding judicial protection of intellectual property rights, 2,249 intellectual property rights criminal cases were filed, and 2,653 individuals were prosecuted, with the quality and efficiency of criminal crackdowns on intellectual property rights crimes consistently improving.
The province's procuratorial organs approved the arrest of 1,265 individuals in intellectual property rights infringement cases and prosecuted 1,779 cases involving 3,192 individuals, intensifying efforts to combat intellectual property rights crimes.
In 2024, customs in Guangdong seized 14,420 batches of infringing goods totaling 34.78 million items. The province organized seven local customs offices to jointly conduct three intellectual property rights customs protection law enforcement operations with the customs authorities of Hong Kong and Macao.
During these operations, local customs offices seized a total of 3,849 batches of suspected infringing goods, amounting to 1.59 million items, effectively cracking down on border infringements and contributing to the development of a world-class business environment.
Reporter | Chen Jinxia
Editor | Hu Nan, James, Shen He
