A visitor touches an automated hand at an exhibition during the second CIIE in Shanghai on Nov 6, 2019. [Photo by Zhu Xingxin/chinadaily.com.cn]

The number of invention patents per 10,000 residents in Shanghai reached 53.54 last year, and the municipality was confident it would grow to 60 this year, a senior intellectual property official said on Tuesday.

The goal of 60 is a main indicator that Shanghai, which aims to build the city into an IP center in the Asia Pacific region by the end of this year, set a decade ago in a 10-year IP development outline when the figure was only 10.4, said Rui Wenbiao, director of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Bureau.

"The number of invention patent applications maintained an average of double-digit growth each year in the past decade and judged from the growth speed of the first season this year, we're confident that we'll fulfill the target," he said during a press briefing on Tuesday.

Shanghai was the country's second highest provincial-level region in the rankings of this indicator of the number of invention patents per 10,000 residents. Beijing had been ranked first for at least five years.

The number of valid invention patents in Shanghai was 129,800, up by 12.88 percent year-on-year, according to the bureau.

A strengthened IP development and protection environment empowered companies' innovation-driven growth, Rui said.

Nine organizations, including the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc China and Shanghai MicroPort Medical (Group) Co, were awarded the inaugural Shanghai Intellectual Property Innovation Awards jointly issued by Shanghai municipal government and the World Intellectual Property Organization last year.

Rui said an IP center means that foreign enterprises are willing to solve IP disputes in the city, and that also was the reason that the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court, one of the first of its kind in the country, was established in 2014.