Cui Ning and Jiang Zhuqing

China's patent system has enjoyed great progress since the country implemented its Patent Law in 1985. Yet additional effort is needed to perfect the patent system, in addition to the entire IPR process.

Wang Jingchuan, commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office, made this analysis in a recent interview with China Daily.

"China has built a complete patent system over the past 20 years, and the system has basically met international standards with the country's accession to World Trade Organization," said Wang.

The awareness of intellectual property rights (IPR) among domestic firms has greatly increased with the nation's rapid economic and scientific development.

The country has registered more than 2 million patent applications over the past two decades.

Last year alone, the country received more than 350,000 patent applications, with 85 per cent of the total coming from domestic companies. The rest are from foreign firms.

Many companies have set up their own IPR departments, such as Sinopec, Haier Group in Qingdao of East China's Shandong Province, and the communication corporation, Huawei Group in Shenzhen.

"We have launched many IPR training programmes to help increase IPR awareness among the public, companies and governmental institutions," Wang said.

Last year, the country set up a National IPR Protection Working Group with Vice-Premier Wu Yi as the leader. At the same time, the State Council launched a year-long special campaign centring on IPR protection.

Late last year, the country lowered the thresholds on punishments for IPR offences. All these measures have further proven that the Chinese Government regards protection of intellectual property rights as a most critical issue, said Wang.

"However, we still need to make long-term and unremitting efforts to further improve our IPR system, as the country has only 20 years history with its IPR system," he said.

Domestic companies should fully consider the issue of how to protect their own intellectual property rights, in the process of project approvals, technological development, and commercialization of technological findings.

They should also learn how to respect the patent rights of others, said Wang.

Although the number of patent applications has kept rising in recent years, the proportion of domestic firms' original innovations are still small.

"Domestic companies should work harder to develop core technologies for backbone industries," Wang said.

Meanwhile, governments at all levels should further create a climate that mandates IPR creation, development and protection for companies, he added.

Wang said the State Intellectual Property Office and other relevant ministry-level departments are working hard to stipulate a national IPR strategy, which is expected to come out in one or two years.

"We are willing to hear objective opinions from the outside world and hope foreigners will provide fair comments on the country's IPR system," he said.

The Chinese system of intellectual property rights has gained worldwide attention with global economic development. IPR violations exist in many countries, including developed nations with hundreds of years of IPR history.

China still needs a long period to improve its IPR system, since it only has 20 years of history working with IPR.

Wang hopes that foreign countries will measure China's IPR system from an optimistic point of view.

IPR violations do exist in some sectors and some areas in China. But the Chinese Government has been making a lot of efforts to protect intellectual property rights, such as fighting against fake audio and video products, destroying counterfeited trademarks, and closing down illegal production lines, Wang said.

(China Daily 03/21/2005 page5)