Beijing's Haidian district launched its annual high-value patent competition at the Zhongguancun Intellectual Property Forum on Sunday, coinciding with the 20th World Intellectual Property Day.

The forum was held online to comply with COVID-19 social distancing rules.

A joint effort by the Haidian district government, the Haidian district intellectual property bureau and Intellectual Property Publishing House, the competition, now in its third iteration, will last through August, with its awards ceremony scheduled to be held between September and October.

Its purpose is to discover innovative technologies featuring high-value patents and share ideas on how to identify, protect and commercialize high-value patents, according to the official website of the competition.

Tech projects from sectors including artificial intelligence, mobile internet, cloud computing, new materials and biomedicine will be favored in the solicitation stage of the 2020 edition. Entries will be evaluated in terms of technological importance, patenting strategies and commercial viability. One of last year's winners was a medication used to treatstrokes.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most activities of the months-long competition will be moved online. Interested teams anywhere in the country can register to enter the competition on its official website starting on Monday. The preliminary rounds will kick off at the end of July withthe finals held in August.

Lei Xiaoyun, head of IP utilization promotion at the National Intellectual Property Administration, said at the opening ceremony that the competition has become an important vehicle for promoting IP utilization and sharing ideas on how to cultivate high-value patents.

"The first two editions of the competition attracted an impressive number of entrants," she said. "A total of 46 teams from all across the country took home awards and quite a few of them secured new rounds of funding after the competition."

Deputy Head of the Haidian district government Lin Jianhua said the district, as a national technology and innovation hub, places IP high on its agenda.

"Haidian district boasts more than 130,000 valid invention patents, accounting for 46.2 percent of Beijing's total," Lin said. "The number of invention patents per 10,000 citizens in the district is 405.3, 30.5 times the national average," Lin said.

Ma Tianqi, deputy general manager of the State Intellectual Property Operation Platform, said at the forum that "high-value technologies" do not necessarily mean great technological complexity or a big budget.

"They are the ones that are capable of being fully commercialized and utilized. Judging the value of technologiesis a highly technical job that requires the discerning eye of well-trained IP strategists or agents," Ma noted.

Apart from technology itself, a high-value patent also depends critically on quality patent documentation drafting, he said, citing the ubiquitous selfie stick that has survived more than 20 invalidation attempts because it is protected by a well-drafted patent application.