50% rise in IPR cases

China's courts have seen a near 50 percent annual increase in the number of cases concerning Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) violations involving foreign firms since the country joined the World Trade Organization.

From 2002 to 2006, China's courts settled 931 civil cases of IPR violation at first instance trials with an annual increase of 48 percent on average. In 2006, China's courts settled 353 civil cases of IPR violation at first instance trials, up 52 percent on the previous year, according the Supreme People's Court.

China will continue to strictly abide by domestic and international laws to treat both domestic and foreign parties concerned in cases of IPR violation equally, said Cao Jianming, vice-president of the Supreme People's Court. He stressed that no privileges will be given to foreigners and no regional or industrial protectionism will be allowed for domestic parties under the guise of protecting national interests.

Infringement crackdown

China's General Administration of Customs announced on January 22 that Chinese customs have tracked down 2,473 cases of IPR infringement goods in imports and exports in 2006, with more than 200 million yuan in value.

Last August, the administration launched a special campaign on striking hard at IPR infringement in the express mail channels, enhancing the investigation of exported goods and articles involving intellectual property and checking every exported goods.

Last September, the administration initiated another special campaign on customs protection for IPR in Yangtze River Delta, which has effectively controlled the increase in exporting IPR infringement goods from the Yangtze River Delta.

Dealers honored

Forty dealers on Beijing's Silk Street market have been honored for protecting IPR by Paul Ranjard, chairman of IPR Working Group at the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.

Last year, Silk Street devoted 30 million yuan to establishing a special foundation for the protection of intellectual property.

Dealers there were encouraged to sell Chinese traditional brands and accredited brands, rather than fake products of international brands.

Paul Ranjard says that the change and development of Silk Street in protecting intellectual property is an example of China's progress in IP protection, and the establishment of a special foundation is a good measure from which other areas in China can learn.

However, there is still much more work that needs to be done, as a visit to Silk Street last week showed that some goods bearing brand names like Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss, and North Face were still being sold as counterfeit products in the market.

Pirated goods seized

Chinese police seized about 150 million illegal, pirated and pornographic publications in 2006, which include pornographic and pirated movies, books, software, audio-video products and electronic publications, according to a national teleconference on anti-pornography and anti-piracy on January 18.

The police also closed 14 illegal VCD and DVD production lines and dealt with more than 30,000 piracy and pornographic cases, including a crackdown on nearly 10,000 illicit websites throughout last year.

China launched its biggest ever crackdown on piracy last July. The three-month campaign, which ended in September, targeted street vendors, underground shops and warehouses selling and storing pirate DVDs and software.

Digital audio standards

The Ministry of Information Industry (MII) has released the standards for the digital audio electronics industry the Codec Technical Specifications with independent intellectual property rights.

According to experts, the Codec technology is the core of the digital audio electronics industry. For a long time, the technology has been controlled by a small number of foreign companies. Therefore, relevant Chinese enterprises had to pay as much as hundreds of millions of dollars annually for the technology licensing.

Vice-Minister of MII Lou Qinjian says the ministry will step up efforts in guidance and promotion, strengthen cooperation with relevant ministries and municipalities, build an effective platform to facilitate operation of the industry chain, and open more markets for independent intellectual property rights.

Disorderly industry

China will introduce stricter measures in its approval of new medicines to cure its "disorderly" drug industry, according to the country's top food and drug administrator.

Xinhua reported that the country's drug watchdogs will not only check the qualification of producers but also inspect research labs and analyze clinical experiment records in order to curb rampant and irregular registration of new drugs.

Many Chinese pharmaceutical companies are known to have registered new drugs by copying existing products and selling them at much higher prices than old ones.

The government is revising a law to narrow the definition of new drugs and control the registration of imitation products.

(China Daily 01/27/2007 page9)