In the year of 2004, on the closing ceremony of the Athens Olympic Games, the Olympics flag was passed to WANG Qishan, the Mayor of Beijing, which initiated the "Beijing Time".

As we all know, future and history connect. The passed two decades witnessed the great power that led to the surprisingly rapid development of the country, as well as the growth of the intellectual property system, which has permeated all the industries, and has showed its increasing influence as time went by.

Let's focus on the statistics below: in 2004, China's total exportation trade value will reach $1,100 billion, a rise of 30% over the previous year, and EU has become China's first trade partner. By the year of 2003, 16,599 technologies has been transferred from EU, China's biggest supplier of technology and equipment, with a total amount of $75.246 billion. International corporations and lots of small and medium sized enterprises from Europe hold their own patents, trade marks and copyrights of their products and technologies, some of which have been filed and registered to the authorities in China.

What do these suggest? At least they imply that the improvements of China's legal and investing environment encourage a great number of international corporations to the growing country. Especially, the coming 2008 Beijing Olympic Games attract global gymnastic products manufacturers to this ancient and vigorous land.

China's Gymnastic Products Industry in the New Economy Era

Gymnastic products industry, being a rising one, is neither vital nor dominant. However, it is fully recognized that it enjoys a potential market with social functions. Generally speaking, the development of gymnastic products industry counts on both the progress of the nation's sports and games, and the prosperous economy and the increasing living level of the people of the country. The history of sports and games being a century, it however developed only 50 years in China. There was not a single real gymnastic products factory throughout the country before 1949, let alone generating the industry. After 1949, with the rapid growing economy and the nation's sports and games, China's gymnastic products industry experienced an accelerating progress. It grew up with creativity and ingenuity rather than merely imitation, building both domestic market and the international ones with an opening attitude. With great achievements, the industry has sparked concerns from both domestic and abroad. In the middle 1970s' nearly a hundred production bases came into being in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangdong and Heilongjiang, and the four gymnastic products supplier systems in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangzhou were getting mature. There are now thousands of gymnastic products enterprises instead of several before 1949. However, due to the relatively late start up and entry to market, as well as the unreasonable structure, the scattering marketing, the low standardization and ignorance of the brands effects, the further development of the  industry was somewhat sluggish. Especially after the access to the WTO, China's gymnastic products industry now is facing with not only the ever greatest opportunity but the serious challenge, among which the intellectual property(IP) protection of the industry has been the significant issue that influences its further development.           

According to the latest data, with the coming of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Japanese gymnastic products are on the march towards China. Mizuno Corporation is planning to build two large-scale exclusive agencies in Beijing and Shanghai, furthermore to extend the number of the exclusive counters in the stores in China from present 400 to 1400 by 2008; those famous European and American sports products that have made access to the China's market, such as Nike, Adidas, etc, are also expanding their marketing and sales; China's Lining Corporation is intending to increase the number of the exclusive agencies from present 300 to 1000 within two years, as well. We can feel the sports products market thrives with the Olympics economy, on the other hand, the issues concerning IP protection of the industry have just emerged and then accumulated. The abroad gymnastic products manufacturers have put forward that their IP in China should be protected by the Chinese government, while the domestic enterprises are exploring how to exist, to develop, and to accelerate globalization by protecting IP of their own.

The IP protection in China

Since 1983, IP laws, such as Trade Mark Law, Patent Law, Copyright Law and Unfair Competition Law, etc, came into force, along with which  Regulation on the Protection of Computer Software, Regulation on the  Protection of Biodiversity of Plants, Regulation on the Draw of Integrated Circuit, Regulation on the Protection of Olympic Symbol and Regulation on the Customs Protection of IP were formulated and implemented.

In 2001, China made access to the WTO. Around then, under the WTO's “Trade Related Intellectual Property Treaties”(TRIPS), several laws and regulations were clarified and revised, which made the China's IP laws and regulations in accordance with TRIPS. The replies of China to the 101 questions raised by US, EU, Japan and Australia were highly remarked be those five member states of WTO.

It took China over two decades to accomplish the IP lawmaking experience which cost developed countries several centuries, which illustrates that China stressed on it and made every endeavour to establish the IP system.

It was noted by the American business community in the Report on China's Implementation of WTO's Commitments of the 2002 to the Congress that, “the legal changes at the national level are of  significant progress, which complies with the basic international standards in most of the key areas”.

As a responsible developing country, China established and improved the domestic IP law system, at the same time, and also signed most of the international treaties on IP protection, and played an active role in formulating and improving IP international rules.

Back to 1980, China acceded to the World Intellectual Property Organization, and then became party of a number of international IP conventions, including “Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property”, “Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks”, “Patent Cooperation Treaty”, “Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works”, “World Copyright Convention”, and “Geneva Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms”.

China's IP protection has already been in abreast of that of the developed world. It is beneficial to China itself to protect IP and to generate a legal environment for scientific creativity and technological scattering, and to create a favorable market for attracting foreign investment both financially and technologically. Therefore, an IP management and protection system has been established, which is in accordance with both international rules and the domestic circumstances.

It is noted that the judicial explanations to the several issues on the application of the specific regulations dealing with IP infringement cases have been given and revised several times recently by the China Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Prosecutor General, and which will be released recently. To appropriately lower the benchmark of the penalty for the IP infringement will be included.

Administrative enforcement, based on the judicial judgment, is one of the China's exclusives. For the IP infringement, with the request of the party, administration could investigate and handle the case under the relative laws and regulations. During the investigation and handling, the administration is allowed to adopt civil almsgiving measures to cease the infringements, as well as to take administrative procedures, such as amercement, confiscation of illegal incoming, sealing up the infringing products, and sequestration. Thanks to the quickness and low cost of the administrative procedures, they are much popular. In the recent years, to further strengthen the administrative enforcement, China has reinforced the united inter-departmental and inter-regional administrative procedures.

In the year of 2003, local IP administrations received 1,429 cases of patent infringements, among which 1,166 closed, 1,357 cases of imitated patents and 222 ones of counterfeit patents established and then investigated and handled.

37,489 cases of all sorts of trade mark irregularity were hunt down by all levels of administrations of industry and commerce, and 5,754.92 tons of piracy commodities were destroyed with a total fine of 242 million Yuan. 45 ones among those were transferred to judicial authorities for criminal responsibility.

August 12th, 2003, National Administration of Copyright destroyed 42 million smuggled optical disks in its movement named of “China's Action of Destroying Smuggled Optical Disks in 2003”.

In September to November of 2003, there were 150 thousand person-time from the legal operation departments concerning copyright in the movement of cracking down piracy software, and 20,000 marts, 67,000 stalls, over 500 enterprises and 8,000 schools were examined, with 12.9 million piracy commodities taken over. 2,542 pirate enterprises were punished, and 1,981 illegal business were cracked down.

In 2003, China Customs hunt down 756 cases of IP infringement of 67.97 million Yuan, among which are 9 import cases of 270 thousand Yuan, and 747 export ones of 67.7 million Yuan. 741 trade mark infringement cases of 66.93 million Yuan, and 14 patent infringement ones of 1.04 million Yuan, copyright infringement one as well, are included.

The two ways for the IP protection – judicial and administrative – effectively reinforced the IP protection in China.

Chinese government made every effort to crack down the IP infringements, which not only meet the WTO's commitments, but also expand the opening-up and attract more foreign investments and technologies, as well become the intrinsic need for developing both China's economy and community.

It is fully recognized by the Chinese government that one of the most important factors of the efficient IP protection is to improve the national awareness of IP protection.

November of 2000, the proposal of setting the World Intellectual Property Day was passed by all the member states on the session. China was one of the two proposing countries.

IP Protection in China with Olympic Economy

The IP in China has made great progress and matched the times, with new issues arising, which are now the fresh contents of IP in China. With the trigger of the “Beijing Time”, it is less than four years from the Games, when there arises another hot issue concerning the IP protection of the 2008 Games.

In the Olympic Games of the recent two decades, the Olympic IP efficiently transformed to a great deal of corporeal property, which was the major income of the Games. It is widely recognized that if the protection of the Olympic IP is inefficient, the Olympic dignity will be hurt, and the interests of the sponsors as well as of the other relative rights holders will be damaged, and then running the Games will be in trouble. Therefore, in the recent decades, host countries of the Games generally legislated in a state level or locally, the interests of the other relative rights holders are ensured and the legal status of the Olympic IP users by registering trade marks and copyrights by the IOC and the other Olympic organizing committees.

Back to December 12th, 2000, with the authorization of the Chinese government, the relative departments signed the legal files on the Olympic IP protection, which claimed that relative regulations would be formulated especially for the protection of the 2008 Games and symbols thereof, and that legal measures would be taken for the efficient and continuous protection of the Olympic symbols, emblems, icons, indications and other Olympic related names and signs. November 1st, 2001, “Regulation of Protection of Olympic Symbol of Beijing” came into force; April 1st, 2002, the State Council passed the review of “Regulation of Protection for Olympic Symbol”, and then it was implemented.

As one of the Olympic symbol holders, Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Games Olympiad put all sorts of Olympic symbols on records to the SAIC, with an amount of 38 by April 1st this year; simultaneously, it filed over twenty applications of the symbols to the IOC. China's efforts on the protection of Olympic IP have been appreciated by the international community – all the licensed commodities of the Athens Olympic Games are made in China. After the list of licensed commodity manufacturers is affirmed by the Athens Organizing Committee for the 2004 Games, when China General Customs initiated the investigation to the IP of the commodities which were exported to Greece and labeled with symbols of Athens Games, the Committee provided the list of the licensed enterprises of the Mainland to the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Games. It is considered to be a kind of trust, which will bring more convenience for the licensed commodities manufacture of the 2008 Games.

In the future 4 years, China's task of protection for Olympic IP will be still heavy. It is known that Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Games will enter into thousands of contracts with the International Olympic cooperative partners, each of which involves IP.

In 2004, on the “Press Release on Beijing IP Protection” hold by information office of Beijing municipal government, Director of Administrative Meeting Office, Beijing IP Office, and Director General of Beijing IP Office, said that the Olympic IP protection campaign has totally launched. It was also pointed out that all the related departments put very stress on the Olympic IP protection and would strictly execute the regulation. From 2002 to 2003, Industry and Commerce Office accepted 144 cases of infringement of Olympic symbol.

At the same time, to memorize the 2nd anniversary of the issue of “Regulation of Protection for Olympic Symbol”, in front of Yansha Shopping Center in Chaoyang District, in cooperation with Beijing Administration of Industry and Commerce Chaoyang District Office, Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Games gave publicity of the protection of Olympic symbol related legal information, and also illustrated how to distinguish the real Olympic souvenir from the counterfeits.

August 3rd, 2003, introducing the “Chinese Emblem·Beijing in Dancing” - the Symbol of the 29th Olympic Games, Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Games held the press conference on IP protection of symbol. Thus, the dancing image, indicating the eagerness of the Chinese nation to perform on the world stage, froze at the moment; so did the IP protection in China, at the same moment.

2013-07-17