7-day Microsoft sale

Microsoft tried to woo consumers with a one-week discount of nearly 70 percent on its Office Suite products in China during the National Day holiday, as it tries to win the battle against pirated software dealers. The world's largest software maker said it reduced the retail price of its Office Suite 2007 home and student edition from 699 to 199 yuan in China during the holiday. The promotion did not include Microsoft system software such as Windows XP or Windows Vista.

Garth Fort, general manager of Microsoft's marketing division in China, said the company wants "every man, woman and child" in the country to use Microsoft's authentic software. He said the price cut would be a litmus test. The one-week promotion comes three months after the company slashed the price of its Microsoft Office Suite 2007 by 50 percent in July, from 1,451 yuan to 699 yuan.

IPR strategy change urged

On September 25, Stephen Selby, director of Hong Kong Intellectual Property Department, made a speech titled "Infringement prevention is more effective than rescue" at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in London.

He pointed out that an IPR protection strategy guided by law enforcement is undesirable. The IPR protection mode should be transformed from former passive rights safeguarding to active self-protection of enterprises and from traditional IPR to intellectual capital management. And IPR protection should occur in the phases of product planning and market investigation, not after the occurrence of infringements.

Representatives from the Economic and Commercial Counselor's Office of the Chinese Embassy in the United Kingdom and local business circle attended the meeting.

Studios sue RealNetworks

Major Hollywood studios filed a lawsuit on October 5 in a Los Angeles court against RealNetworks, accusing the Internet media software maker of distributing a product that could be used to copy DVDs and store the contents on computers.

The software, called RealDVD, was introduced by RealNetworks earlier last month. The company, which also produces the popular on-line media player RealPlayer, said RealDVD could allow users to easily store movies in their computers, without cracking a DVD's protective encryption. The lawsuit filed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which represents major studios including Disney, Paramount and Sony Pictures, claims that the software violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and "illegally circumvents" copyright protections built into DVDs.

MPAA requested the court to issue a restraining order preventing RealNetworks from selling the software and demanded unspecified damages.

Chinese medicine promoted

The 7th Nanyang Zhang Zhongjing Medical Cultural Festival, which was sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Henan provincial government, was held in Nanyang city on September 19.

Vice-Minister of MOST Liu Yanhua addressed the opening ceremony, calling traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) the "gem of traditional Chinese culture". In order to improve the core competitiveness and innovative capacity of TCM, and to facilitate TCM modernization and globalization, MOST took the lead in launching "Technological Action Plan for TCM Modernization" during the Ninth Five-Year Period, and later in designing the Outline of TCM Modernization and the Outline of Innovation and Development Plan of TCM (2006-2020). Through those initiatives, the direction of TCM development was clarified, and major TCM S&T projects were organized and implemented.

Geographical indications

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) has issued the Outline of National IPR Strategy to further strengthen the protection on geographical indication (GI) products and to intensify IPR law enforcement.

A geographical indication is a sign used on goods that have a specific geographical origin and possess particular qualities or a reputation due to their origin. Often, a GI includes the name of the place of origin of the goods. Chinese examples include Liuyang firecrackers, Dalian Jinzhou Big Cherries and Qianxi Chestnuts,

The outline requires building a standard system of geographical indications as well as quality guarantee system and checkup system; a census of GI resources; developing GI products; and transforming the natural and cultural resources with local characteristics into actual productivity.

In order to meet the requirements of the outline, AQSIQ called for tightening the construction for GI protection system, conducting the GI census, and maintaining the quality characteristic of GI products.

High tech SMEs helped

The Bank of Shanghai and the Productivity Promotion Center of Pudong New Area have developed the "IPR Pledge Service", raising the single loan amount for high-tech small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from 1 million yuan to 2 million yuan and extending the loan term from one year to three years.

At the end of 2006 Bank of Shanghai and Science and Technology Commission of Pudong New Area set up a financing system for high-tech SMEs for the bank to provide loans to technology companies by means of the IPR pledge.

At present, more than 30 companies have received the loans, amounting to 30 million yuan. More than half the applicants have passed the examination and obtained the loans.

Illegal publications quashed

In the first half of this year, China made progress in the nationwide anti-piracy campaign which was jointly launched by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), Ministry of Railways, General Administration of Customs (GAC), State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), Ministry of Culture (MOC) and Civil Aviation Administration of China and other departments.

According to statistics, in the first six months, over 46 million illegal newspapers and periodicals were confiscated and 12,838 cases were investigated.

(China Daily 10/13/2008 page9)