Photo taken on Dec. 13, 2022 shows visitors viewing an electric fixed-wing vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drone with a utility model patent at the 12th Guangxi Invention and Innovation Exhibition and Fair held in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. [Photo by Yu Xiangquan/China News Service]

China has witnessed an increase in both the quantity and quality of valid invention patents in the past year, the country's top intellectual property regulator said on January 16, 2023.

In 2022, a total of 798,000 invention patents were authorized. By the end of 2022, the total number of valid invention patents in China had reached 4.21 million, of which 3.28 million were held by inventors from Chinese mainland, said Hu Wenhui, deputy head of the National Intellectual Property Administration, at a press conference.