A total of 72,390 patents were authorized in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province in 2021, up 19.5 percent year-on-year, local authorities announced at a news conference on April 26.

The number of invention patents rose 46.4 percent year-on-year to 7,819, bringing the total number of valid invention patents owned by the city to 38,289 as of the end of last year.

Over this period, nearly 9,000 copyrights were also registered in the city, a yearly uptick of 59 percent year-on-year.

Ningbo has recently made great efforts to strengthen intellectual property rights protection. In October 2020, the city rolled out a special guideline regarding this matter.

In 2021, Ningbo handled 1,844 patent infringement or counterfeit cases, as well as 442 trademark infringement or counterfeit cases.

Authorities accepted 106 patent infringement cases which were filed offline, up 158 percent year-on-year. Among them, 15 cases were solved by administrative adjudication, a rise of 67 percent year-on-year. The average time required for the process was about 70 days, with the fastest being concluded within a week.

In addition, loans achieved by pledging intellectual property rights were valued at 11.9 billion yuan ($1.83 billion). These loans benefited 291 enterprises.

In July last year, Ningbo was ranked first among 157 sub-provincial cities and prefecture-level cities in China in a national appraisal for administrative protection for intellectual property rights.

Following Ningbo were Shenzhen, Shaoxing, Jinhua, Shijiazhuang, Wenzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Taizhou, and Guangzhou.