The Weifang Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone, in East China's Shandong province, is focused on promoting innovation and patent application to better support regional GDP growth, according to local officials.

This benefits companies within the zone like Shandong CidePlus Bio-Tech, which has successfully developed an active molecular iodine-based product that can kill germs and viruses in seconds.

Established in 2006, the company has registered nine patents so far and formed an intellectual property rights department to deal with related matters.

Strong protection for intellectual property is crucial to development, according to Han Shenghua, the company's executive director, as biopharmaceutical research takes a long time to complete and would be rendered pointless if not protected.

Xu Jing, deputy director of the incubation department at the Weifang pharmaceutical innovation and startups service center, said that the zone has established a series of public technological platforms and pilot platforms to better serve the companies within it.

In the first seven months of 2018, companies in the Weifang Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone submitted 2,272 patent applications, a year-on-year increase of 20.21 percent.

Among them, the number of patents for new inventions reached 999, a 55.37 percent year-on-year increase. Companies also provided 1,422 patent authorizations, a 23.87 percent increase year-on-year.

According to statistics from the zone's authority, there were 101.58 patents per every 10,000 people within the zone by June 30, ranking it first among all the city's districts.