The Chinese State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) handled 60,443 patent applications in the first eight months of this year, up 65 percent from the same period last year.

　 Today's China Daily reported that the efficiency of patent examinations in China has been greatly improved by the effort of the SIPO.

　 Patent applications for new inventions and product designs now can be handled tin a timely manner.

　 During the first half of this year, the number of handled patent applications was 38 percent more than planned, said Wu Boming, SIPO's vice-commissioner.

　 Patent examinations are regarded as efficient if applications can be resolved within 30 months from the registration date, Wu said.

　 However, he added, shortages of specialized examiners occasionally caused application delays of up to seven years.

　 To address the problem, SIPO has, since last October, invited retired patent examiners to help examiners classify application files in a bid to solve this problem, he said.

　 Moreover, he noted, the SIPO will publish bulletins periodically to supervise the quality of patent examinations. (Xinhua)