10 Ningbo patents win national honor

Ten patents from Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang province won the 23th China Patent Award, the Ningbo Municipal Bureau of Market Supervision announced recently.

Conferred by the China National Intellectual Property Administration and the World Intellectual Property Organization, the China Patent Award is the only governmental award in China to reward inventions and creations with patent rights.

Ningbo was ranked second in Zhejiang, only behind Hangzhou, the provincial capital, in terms of the number of award winners.

In the first half of this year, 4,862 invention patents were authorized in Ningbo, a 31.2 percent year-on-year increase, official statistics show.

The newly authorized invention patents were mainly for smart home appliances and optical components. Specifically, 559 were related to air conditioning, household stoves and kitchen utensils. Fotile and Aux were among those that filed for these patents.

Meanwhile, Sunny Optical and its subsidiaries had 117 invention patents regarding optical components authorized during the period.

Companies were the city's prime innovation drivers as they accounted for 3,847 invention patents, or 79.1 percent of the city's total. Among them, 2,789 are high-tech enterprises.

Data shows that Ningbo had 42,853 valid invention patents as of June, an uptick of 24.7 percent year-on-year.