IPR target

China says it plans to "dramatically increase" its intellectual property rights (IPR) level and "markedly improve the IPR protection situation within five years".

The State Council recently released an outline of the new IPR campaign, under which it also plans to raise the general population's IPR protection awareness over five years. By 2020, it says, China will become a country with a "fairly high level of IPR creation, use, protection and management".

Other key points of the strategy include perfecting the IPR system, avoidance of IPR abuse and nurturing respect for IPR, it says.

Liaoning fights porno

The Liaoning Provincial Office of Anti-pornography and Anti-illegal Publications recently launched a campaign to combat illegal publications, protect intellectual property rights and fight against piracy. It said the crackdown is intended to "create a favorable cultural environment for the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games".

During the campaign, the province will ensure that the publishing and distribution units do not publish, print or distribute illegal publications, that the publication markets around the Olympic venues, athlete residences and the route of the Olympic torch relay are standardized and orderly and that there is no street peddling or sales of illegal and pirated publications and software.

Beijing Customs seizures

Beijing Customs recently seized 3,248 pairs of sports shoes suspected of infringing on the Nike brand through the mail. Beijing Customs has confiscated 1,019 batches of goods suspected of infringing intellectual property rights valued at 10 million yuan in 2008. The goods were mainly sports shoes, underwear, bags, medicine and clothing alleged to be in violation of the intellectual property rights of 28 holders from 11 countries and regions. Most of the alleged violations were committed via the mail and involved 56 categories of commodities, 46 brands and totaled about 27,000.

In addition, Beijing Customs also investigated five cases of 2008 Olympic sign trademark infringement..

New Dalian software firm

Dalian Presoft Co Ltd, a new software business has opened in Dalian, a coastal city in Liaoning province.

"The new company is dedicated to being a bridge between Japanese customers and Chinese service providers in the IT sector," said Presoft president Li Yuanming. Presoft will focus on IT services and training for its Japanese and Chinese partners, Li said.

"With a staff of more than 540 people, we are confident that we can double our output value every year for the next three years. It is expected to be 70 million yuan this year, and reach $50 million by 2010," he said.

Li was one of the founders of Dalian-based Hisoft Technology International Ltd, now one of China's top three global IT service providers. He resigned from his position as president of Hisoft, which focuses on Japan to United States IT trade, and began work ing on a company bridging Japan and China.

Presoft is supported by Hisoft and JBCC Holdings Inc, a Japan-based IT company, which has cooperated with Hisoft since 1998.

Last year, Dalian announced its plan to become a major hub for the global software and outsourcing industry. In 2007, its sales revenue and the export volume were 21.5 billion yuan and 720 million yuan respectively, with a year-on-year increase of 48 percent and 60 percent respectively.

Forbidden fruit

On June 6, Manzhouli Customs found 500 packing trunks of exported fruit with the cartoon mascots of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and drawings of the Olympic emblem in a Russian truck. It was the first Olympics-related seizure that the customs office has made since being trained regarding Olympics IPR violations.

Since 2004, Manzhouli Customs has investigated over 20 IPR infringement cases valued at 8 million yuan. The captured goods involved shoes, clothes, suitcases and watches.

Arts and crafts protection

A symposium on protecting practitioners of State-level intangible cultural heritages (ICHs) was held in Beijing to discuss how to protect ICH inheritors.

Vice-Minister of Culture Zhou Heping said that the Interim Measures for Recognizing and Managing Practitioners of State-level ICHs is about to to be implemented and will regulate the standards, rights, obligations and management of ICH artists and craftspeople.

The ICH practitioners who participated gave opinions on how to develop and improve ICH protection work. Some said it is necessary to establish traditional cultural education in schools. Others said that the most important thing is for ICH artists to improve the quality of their work and help make young people more enthusiastic about traditional arts and crafts.

(China Daily 06/16/2008 page9)

2013-07-17