On September 28, Chinese Ambassador to the United States Qin Gang tweeted that in the past decade, the overall ratings of China's IPR protection have increased significantly. The Chinese government is confident & capable of ensuring equal fair & strict IPR protection for companies from all over the world.
"The number of patents for inventions and trademarks granted to foreign applicants in 2021 grew by 23% and 5% year on year respectively, showing their recognition of China's IPR protection environment. Joint ventures and foreign enterprises' satisfaction with IPR protection in 2021 was up 4.52 points and 2.36 points from the beginning of the '13th five-year' period respectively," a set of data recently released by the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) also reveals acknowledgement of joint ventures and foreign enterprises over China's IPR protection environment.
Scientific and precise legislation, timely and powerful law enforcement
China's social satisfaction with IPR protection reached a record high of 80.61 points in 2021, up 16.92 points from 2012 when the survey was launched, exceeding the 80-point threshold for two straight years and maintaining a healthy momentum. To Zhang Zhicheng, spokesperson for the CNIPA and Director General of Intellectual Property Protection Department at a CNIPA regular press conference on September 6, these changes exhibit China's significant results in the strict, broad, fast and collaborative protection of IPR.
According to the results of the 2021 survey, among the five first-level indicators of the satisfaction evaluation system, social satisfaction with legislations and policies scored the highest at 83.26 points. Zhang said China had attached great importance to IPR protection and designed a grand scheme for IPR development in the recent decade. Under such top-level framework, China has imprinted such strictness of IPR protection into the formulation and revision of laws and policies, released laws and regulations frequently, and kept heightening sanctions on IPR infringement to protect right holders and innovators.
A slew of departmental regulations formulated and revised by the CNIPA in recent years epitomize the dynamic response to public concerns and safeguard the lawful rights and interests of rights holders and the public. At the press conference, according to He Yuefeng, Deputy Director General of the CNIPA's Legal Affairs Department, with respect to the standards for patent and trademark examination and trial, in the revised draft of the Patent Examination Guideline and the Trademark Examination and Adjudication Guideline, the CNIPA provided for the applicable conditions of abnormal patent applications and malicious trademark registrations and application not for the purpose of use, to effectively deal with the above-mentioned behavior. As an important legal basis for identifying and dealing with abnormal patent applications, the Regulations on Standardizing Patent Application, which was revised in 2017 and is now under further revision, will improve the examination and adjudication proceedings, make them more open and transparent, and treat abnormal patent applications more effectively.
Oriented legislation, powerful law enforcement: over the past decade, China has been intensifying the law enforcement protection of IPR. Wang Songlin, Deputy Director General of the Law Enforcement and Inspection Bureau of the China's State Administration for Market Regulation, said at the conference that products concerning the safety of people's health and property are alwasys on the radar of IPR law enforcement in China, and China has been stepping up law enforcement and regularly exposed typical cases of the kind. Data shows social satisfaction with law enforcement protection in China surged from 58.45 points at the beginning of the survey to 80.95 points in 2021, and nearly 90% of the respondents said the effects of administrative law enforcement and judicial protection had been further improved.
Pooling core strength, unblocking "capillaries"
Over the past decade, CNIPA has built 60 IPR protection centers in 26 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) in China along with localities and relevant departments, providing "one-stop" services for elite industries of provinces (municipalities), including fast-tracked pre-examination, fast determination of rights and fast enforcement of rights. In the first half of this year, the IP protection centers nationwide completed some 16,000 cases of right enforcement, and received 64,000 cases of patent pre-examination, to effectively meet the needs of innovative enterprises, having gained high satisfaction level and maintained the upward momentum in the process.
Over the past decade, social satisfaction with IPR protection in 31 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) in China, has soared above 70 points and 80 points successively. To Zhang, China's efforts on IPR, the importance it has attached to IPR and the achievements it has made have gained more recognition from the society, which are reflected in the quantitative increase and the qualitative transformation of IPR protection.
