Illustrating the area's increasing capacity for innovation, companies in East China's Suzhou Industry Park applied for more than 6,500 patents in the first 10 months of 2011, an increase of 50 percent over the same period in 2010.

More than 3,200 of the applications were granted, up 34 percent, among them 580 invention patents.

Companies in the sprawling park also applied for more than 200 overseas patents.

More than 100 resident companies applied for their first patent in 2011.

The park has generated over 1,000 international patent applications, including 143 through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). More than 80 percent of the PCT applications were filed in the past three years.

Europe and the United States are the two regions that file the most of the international patent applications.

Following an agreement signed in September by the park administrative committee and the patent examination department at the State Intellectual Property Office, local authorities began recruiting more IP experts to expedite paperwork between companies and the patent examiners.

Authorities plan to implement a series of IP evaluation programs that will provide analysis, intelligence on filed patents, legal services and training.

Companies in the park planning to go public are one focus of the effort that joins with a number of IP agencies to help establish and improve their IP protection systems as well as analyze risks.

Over the past year, the local park's IP office has found model IP protection companies while encouraging other companies to file patent applications and improved its overall IP services.

It organized 10 training programs by the end of last October involving more than 1,000 participants.

A course in October was the first training class for company IP managers that mainly targeted market-leading companies and those planning to go public.

Executives, patent workers, human resource personnel, legal experts and financial departments were involved in the class.

Sponsored by the IP office, 84 participants from leading companies attended training by the China Intellectual Property Society last year, and more than 100 others were sent to provincial IP courses.

A partnership has been established between the IP authority in the park and the search engine company Soopat, to build a nationwide online patent exhibition and trading platform. The network launched a nanotechnologies exhibition and trading sector over the fifth China Patent Week in November, and attracted more than 500,000 visits a day.