BEIJING, June 12 (Xinhua) -- The comprehensive development level of intellectual property rights (IPR) in China has kept rising and the quality of patents is improving, said an official at the State Intellectual Property Office Tuesday.

Han Xiucheng, director of the office's Intellectual Property Development Research Center, made the remarks at the launch of a report about China's IPR development in 2017.

The report shows that China has made progress in IPR creation, application, protection, management and service, and the gap with major IPR powers has narrowed. China's IPR development ranked 10th out of 40 countries in 2016, up from 19th in 2012.

In 2017, China's patent retention rate reached 60 percent, up 3.9 percentage points from a year earlier, and the average duration of invention patents reached 6.2 years, the report said. Though the quality of China's patents has improved, it still lags far behind increases in quantity and efficiency.

Han also said China would step up IPR protection by raising legislative standards, improving law enforcement, and promoting innovation in the trial of IPR cases, in order to impose tougher punishment on the infringement of IPR.

"The improvement of the IPR system, steady increase in the number of service organizations and personnel, as well as fast growing of public awareness has made the IPR environment in China much better," Han said.