BEIJING, July 18 -- China's intellectual property (IP) development has gained progress during the first half of 2023, the country's top IP regulator told a press conference on Tuesday.

In the first six months of this year, China granted 433,000 invention patents, 1.1 million utility model patents and 344,000 design patents, said Hu Wenhui, deputy head of the National Intellectual Property Administration.

During the same period, China saw 35,000 international applications filed under the World Intellectual Property Organization's Patent Cooperation Treaty.

By the end of June, the total number of valid invention patents in China exceeded 4.56 million, while the number of valid registered trademarks in China was about 44.24 million.

In terms of IP protection, in the first half of 2023, China handled 21,000 administrative adjudication cases concerning patent infringement disputes and started the building of the first batch of 10 national IP protection demonstration zones, according to Hu.