The 18th Optics Valley of China Intellectual Property International Forum is held in Optics Valley in Wuhan. [Photo/cjn.cn]

The 18th Optics Valley of China Intellectual Property International Forum was held on Nov 11 in the East Lake High-tech Development Zone -- also known as Optics Valley of China -- located in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province.

At the event, experts and academics from home and abroad exchanged their views on the theme of "building a global community of health for all and the development of intellectual property (IP) rights".

At the opening ceremony, Liu Hua, director of the China Office of the World Intellectual Property Organization – or the WIPO – extended his greetings and welcomed guests on behalf of Daren Deng, WIPO's director-general.

IP rights are closely related to human health and strengthening the protection of IP rights can promote the innovative development of the medical industry.

It can develop more innovative drugs and precision medical devices, as well as improve the ability and levels of treatment. Experts delivered speeches on a number of related topics.

IP has become the new engine and key support for industrial innovation and development of Optics Valley and Wuhan.

In 2019, Optics Valley ranked fourth among the 169 national high-tech zones in China. Among them, the zone's capacity for knowledge creation and technological innovation ranked it second in China. The supporting role of independent IP rights for its rapid economic development was becoming increasingly apparent.

In recent years, the zone has become the first national IP demonstration park and has been included in the first batch of national navigation and optical communication industry patent development experimental areas.

It was also among the first batch of national IP service industry cluster development experimental areas and was a national small and medium-sized enterprise IP strategy promotion project pilot park.

At present, patent applications from the zone are growing at an average annual rate of about 25 percent and more than 4,000 international patent applications have been submitted through the Patent Cooperation Treaty, or PCT.

From January to September 2020, the number of patent applications in the zone was 26,543, a year-on-year increase of 7.7 percent and the number of patents granted was 18,400, with a year-on-year increase of 37.2 percent.

Eight Optics Valley enterprises were rated as national IP demonstration enterprises, 11 enterprises were rated as national IP advantage enterprises, 35 enterprises were rated as Hubei province IP demonstration enterprises, three enterprises got gold awards from the China Patent Award and more than 60 companies were awarded excellence awards at the China Patent Award.

In addition, Optics Valley has attracted nearly 300 IP service institutions of various types, with more than 4,000 employees -- including eight leading IP service institutions -- covering the whole IP services industry chain.