Honesty in applications

Additional rules on patent applications took effect in October, the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) said on its website.

The new rules say applicants should be honest in applications and cheats for patents will not be tolerated, including duplicate applications with the same or highly similar content from the same applicants or their associates, as well as plagiarism.

SIPO also requires local governments to guide applicants and not mislead them to apply for patents just for rewards or subsidies. Those suspected of violating criminal laws may be brought to court.

Patent agencies are also warned to pay due attention in handling patent applications.

To encourage innovation, many governments have been giving financial aid to patent holders, and as a result many organizations and individuals have made fake patent claims.

Piracy hotline

The national piracy reporting hotline was initiated on September 29 in Beijing. People or organizations providing valuable tips to criminal piracy cases can get a reward of up to 100,000 yuan, the Xinhua News Agency reports.

Both Chinese and foreign individuals or companies can call 12390 to file complaints or report piracy.

SOEs judged by innovation

Innovations with Intellectual property will become a key index on the performance of managers of large State-owned enterprises (SOEs). The first result based on that measurement is likely to be released this month, said Huang Shuhe, vice-minister of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) on September 27.

He said SOEs under the supervision of the SASAC should take the lead in the creation and protection of IPs and should formulate their own IP strategies, enhance efforts in IP creation and protection, expedite applications, and build well-known brands.

SOEs have been a leading force in creating IPs. In 2006, 153 SOEs under the supervision of the central government applied for 14,696 patents and were granted 7,381.

The number of trademark registration by those SOEs since 2001 has grown 25 percent annually on average. Last year, the enterprises also participated in setting 434 international standards, 1,744 national standards and 2,781 industrial standards.

Patents up 40.5 percent

China approved 168,000 patents in the first half of this year, up 40.5 percent over last year, according to SIPO.

More than 142,000 patent rights were granted domestically, up 44.5 percent, and 26,000 were granted overseas, up 22 percent.

The number of invention patents rose 15.3 percent, to 32,000, along with 71,000 design patents, an increase of 53 percent, according to the office.

"The sharp increase shows greatly improved efficiency and capability in patent examination and approval," said an official with the office.

The state office received 268,926 patent applications in the first half of this year, an increase of 7.3 per cent. By the end of June, the office had granted 1.9 million patent rights out of the 3.6 million applications it received.

Software ambassadors

More than 10,000 students majoring software development from Peking University, Renming University of China and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunication pledged at the end of last month in Beijing to be "legal software ambassadors", The Beijing News reports.

College volunteers will help more than 10,000 Chinese enterprises install free genuine software sponsored by IBM and Novell. The entire package of the software is estimated to be worth 60,000 yuan.

The software includes operating systems, Microsoft Office and information management systems. The ambassadors' goal is to assist enterprises to be entirely equipped with legal software.

According to China News Agency, the software installed on the computers of Chinese governments in all levels is completely legal and the government is aware of the software piracy problem in enterprises as well.

Low-cost digital movies

Affordable digital movies will be available in over 100 Chinese university cinemas, thanks to the newly formed 21st Century Campus Digital Cinemas Corp. Students in the first group of universities who signed contracts with the company can watch movies by paying only 3 to 8 yuan for each, according to The Beijing Times.

The company will introduce high quality digital movies to attract college students and many art movies that would not usually be in commercial cinemas will be brought to campus screens. The company also hopes the initiative will help decrease illegal downloads of movies from the Internet.

Top universities, including Peking University and Tsinghua University have already become members.

The company plans to complete their entire network within three years, covering almost 1,000 campus cinemas.

(China Daily)