China granted 412,000 patent rights in 2008, up 17.1 percent over the previous year, patent authorities reported on Friday.

These included more than 352,000 domestic applications and 60,000 from abroad, according to the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO).

The office also revealed it received over 828,000 patent applications last year, an increase of 19.4 percent year-on-year.

A spokesman for the SIPO said the office did not compile statistics on the number of applications rejected.

Yin Xintian, another spokesman with SIPO, said, "Patent grants in high-tech fields, such as audio-visual, optical and semiconductor technologies, still far behind foreign countries".

Each application took one to three years to be processed, depending on their complexity.

China has granted 2.5 million patent rights since 1997.

(Xinhua News Agency January 30, 2009)