Mars rover Zhurong wins China's top patent award

NANJING, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Mars rover Zhurong and nine other patented inventions won "Gold Design" awards at the 24th China Patent Awards on Saturday.

The National Intellectual Property Administration (NIPA) presented the 10 awards to designers at a ceremony held in the city of Wuxi, east China's Jiangsu Province.

Zhurong is part of China's Tianwen-1 Mars exploration mission. It landed on the Utopia Planitia, a vast plain in the northern hemisphere of the red planet, on May 15, 2021. The six-wheeled solar-powered rover, resembling a blue butterfly, is named after the god of fire in ancient Chinese mythology. With a height of 1.85 meters and a weight of 240 kg, Zhurong can travel at a speed of 200 meters per hour on the Martian surface.

Other winners include a crawler crane widely used in engineering construction, and an advanced computed tomography (CT) scanner for medical diagnosis.

The China Patent Awards have been co-organized by the NIPA and the World Intellectual Property Organization since 1989. They are the country's top prizes for patented inventions and industrial designs.

The number of new design applications in China totaled 795,000 in 2022. According to the WIPO, China takes the lead in the world in the number of patent, trademark and design applications.

Most of the gold award-winning designs will be displayed for public view at the 18th China (Wuxi) International Design Expo, which will conclude on Sept. 11.