Patent examination at the State Intellectual Property Office in China

► Overview of the institutional background of patent examination at the State Intellectual Property Office SIPO in China. ► Multivariate duration analysis of a unique dataset (not used before) of the population of 443,533 patent applications filed at the SIPO between 1990 and 2002. ► Chinese applicants are able to achieve faster patent grants than their counterparts. ► Further managerial insights derived from multivariate analysis.