Improving the patent market in China requires not only consistent enforcement of laws but also education of the general public, according to experts.

Patent violations often happen in this country. Common infractions include copying other's patents, claiming non-existent "international patent" registration, and taking money from inventors in the name of helping them commercialize new technologies, according to Li Rongchang, an official of China Patent Technology Development Company.

The patent of a certain design or invention should be presented and established with the general public to avoid confusion and thus prevent patent theft, Li said.

Some people take advantage of the public's ignorance of patent knowledge, he added.

Many inventors know little about patent law and regulations and are eager to commercialize their technologies. Consequently, some individuals and intermediary agencies seize the opportunity to "help" inventors transfer technologies by collecting service fees.

A typical pitch from a bogus intermediary agency to an inventor is: "A foreign company is interested in your technology, but the technology has to meet international standards. Our agency can help you pass the evaluation."

The inventor, trusting the agency, hands over service fees ranging from 4,000 to 40,000 yuan (US$482 to $4,820). After collecting the fees, the agencies often disappear or claim the technology "failed an evaluation."

Over the past two years in Central China's Hunan Province, some inventors were invited by agents to live in a hotel for more than a month.

The fraudulent agents said they would help the inventors transfer technology after a month of negotiation. The inventors had to cover the hotel expenses, pay service fees to the agents and treat them to meals almost every day. In the end, the agents disappeared and even the hotel employees didn't know their whereabouts.

Li reminds inventors there is no easy way to commercialize patented technology.

"Inventors should equip themselves with patent knowledge... and they must be careful when taking part in technology transfer or other similar activities," said Li.

"Some substandard activities were even held at the Great Hall of the People, in the name of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), trying to sound very attractive to inventors.

"We often receive phone calls from inventors, saying their technologies have caught attention from a certain company and asking whether they should co-operate with the company or not," Li said.

He suggested that inventors seeking to commercialize their technologies go to intermediary agencies that are authorized by the SIPO and regional intellectual property administrations.

Shantian case

Other patent violations include duplication or labelling with non-existent patents or even international patents.

An incident in 2002 came to light when officers from the local intellectual property rights supervision team in South China's Guangdong Province stepped into the market in downtown Guangzhou. They found a series of pesticide products with the brand name Shantian that claimed to be patented products in packaging printed with the logo that only patent products can carry. The instruction booklet also said the products used an advanced formula for making pesticide from a well-known Japanese chemical enterprise.

The Shantian products have been very popular among local residents, occupying almost 10 per cent of the market share in Guangzhou.

But a preliminary patent information analysis confirmed the suspicion of the patent protection watchdog that the Shantian products had no patent at all.

The intellectual property rights supervision team raided the distribution and production locations of the product line last March and tracked down more than 20,000 cases of mosquito repellent bearing the patent logo, as well as a large amount of semi-manufactured goods and raw materials worth more than 4 million yuan (US$483,700).

Guangzhou authorities announced their final verdict in early June that a total of eight kinds of Shantian products with patent marks on the packaging were confirmed as fraudulent, and printing the patent logo on the packaging constituted a violation of the Patent Law.

The factory was required to immediately halt production of the products and the owner was fined 67,000 yuan (US$8,100), while the Shantian products' distribution agent was fined 38,000 yuan (US$4,600) for using the patent logo in advertisements.

As the central and local governments intensify their efforts to regulate the market and protect intellectual property rights, such searches and punishments have become routine in major cities across the country.

The heightened vigilance is the appropriate response to increasingly rampant production and sale of goods involving patent imitation and counterfeiting.

China has become a signatory country to many international treaties against patent violations and counterfeiting and the central and local governments are making unprecedented efforts to root out the lawbreakers.

Studies done by the Development Research Centre of the State Council revealed that local brands were imitated in almost equal proportion to international brands.

Truth of 'international patent'

Some companies do not infringe on trademarks. Instead, they have come out with the creative concept of an "international patent."

Nobody who sells products carrying the alleged patent is able to provide a clear answer of what it is and who backs it.

A Beijing salesman of a massage chair, which claims to have such an international patent, said: "Who cares, as long as it can earn the consumers' interest and trust?"

Many products, from auto parts to bicycles, toothbrushes to air-conditioners, even odour-free shoe pads, have claimed to have international patents.

At a department store in Beijing, an electric toothbrush was said to have technology covered by an international patent. However, no documentation could be provided to support the claim.

"There is an increase of patent fraud in the name of some non-existent international organizations and we are always invited to distinguish authentic from non-authentic," said Ming Tinghua, deputy chairman of the Chinese Invention Association, reported Market News.

According to article 15 of the Patent Law of China, the patentee "shall have the right to affix a patent marking and indicate the patent number on the patented product or on the packaging of that product."

This means the patentee can mark the names of countries in which the product obtained patent protection.

"But there is no such international patent," said Gao Lulin, an intellectual property expert and former commissioner of SIPO. A patent is protected and takes effect according to the law of each country. If a patentee wants to enjoy the patent right in two countries, he has to apply to the second country for patent protection according to its laws.

International treaties have pushed forward the development of patent protection, but they are not able to grant international patents.

No country or international organization can grant international patents, said Dong Jingsheng, deputy director of China Consumers' Association. "The international patent is a lie," he stated categorically.

Dong called for a crackdown of patent fraud as well as more education about patent law among the public.

For example, he added, many patents cover only the external design, which has nothing to do with the technology of the product, and consumers should not confuse the two concepts.

(China Daily 07/26/2004 page5)