A senior Chinese official says China still needs to strengthen its innovative capability to become a great power in self-owned intellectual property rights.

Lu Yongxiang is vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of National People's Congress, China's top legislature.

Addressing a conference in Beijing on Thursday, he noted that China has established a self-owned intellectual property right system with its own characteristics. And the amount of patent applications in the country is now among the front ranks in the world.

But the vice-chairman said that China still has to make efforts to become a great power in self-owned intellectual property rights.

"We are short of self-owned intellectual property rights that are cutting-edge or in priority industries. The percentage of our intellectual property that can be put into practical use is low, and the implementation of our intellectual property rights law still needs to be reinforced."

Lu Yongxiang pointed out that what's important now is to speed up the industrialization of intellectual property rights, improve social awareness in protecting intellectual property rights as well as further strengthening the legal system to protect intellectual property rights.

He stressed that the key point is to put intellectual property into practical use.

"Enterprises are crucial in better using intellectual properties. Researching institutions are where the innovative technologies come from. However, to further change intellectual property into productive force and competitiveness, we still need to ensure faster and more efficient use of intellectual properties in enterprises."