Employees of Tongrentang, one of China’s most time-honored brands, polish the company's plaques to show their respect for the brand. The company has applied for trademarks in more than 100 countries and regions through various mechanisms including the Madrid System and reviews its global trademark layout annually.

The market and cultural environment for intellectual property in China still needs to be improved relative to the institutional environment, according to a recent report by the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO).

The report evaluated the development of intellectual property by analyzing the indexes of creation, use, protection and environment. It looked at national and provincial development in 2015 and during the five-year period from 2010 to 2015.

According to the report, the national comprehensive index of development steadily increased from a baseline of 100 in 2010 to about 187 in 2015. Han Xiucheng, director of the Intellectual Property Development and Research Center at SIPO, said indexes indicate intellectual property has developed steadily in China since the national intellectual property strategy was implemented in 2008.

The number of registrations, business transactions and legal cases concerning intellectual property has increased dramatically. The number of cases related to intellectual property processed by judiciary and administrative departments has also increased. Public awareness of intellectual property has improved rapidly and a system of related services is taking shape, according to the report.

The report also evaluates China’s development relative to other countries. China rose to eighth on the comprehensive index and is now starting to catch up with countries that have mature intellectual property systems, like the United States and Japan. China ranked 30th on the environment index, one of three indexes the report used for comparison between countries along with ability and performance.

“It is a long-term and arduous task to create a favorable environment for the development of intellectual property. As we can see from the report, of the three factors reviewed for the environment index, the contributions of the market and cultural environment to the development of intellectual property are less obvious than that of the institutional environment. More improvements are needed in the market and cultural environment,” Han said.