By PNA / Xinhua and U.S. News Agency / Asian

China has become the world’s sixth largest applicant for international trademark registry this year, up one place from 2010, a deputy director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said Tuesday.

The country is the among the world’s most active applicants in terms of the number of applications, said Wang Binying, the deputy director general.

The WIPO received a total of 39,687 applications worldwide in 2010. Among them, 1,928 came from China, up 42.2 percent year-on-year, the second fastest increase worldwide after the Republic of Korea, Wang said at the 4th China Trademark Festival being held in Chengdu, capital of southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

Meanwhile, China’s domestic trademark registry applications are also rapidly increasing, with the number of applications exceeding 1.4 million so far this year, according to Wang.

Wang said this has reflected the steadily rising comprehensive national strength of China and its strong economic growth. It has also shown that the government has made substantial progress in intellectual property rights protection.