Cooperation agreement

The State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) and Guangdong provincial government recently signed a protocol on establishing high-level intellectual property strategic cooperation in Guangzhou.

The cooperation covers 10 areas, including constructing an IP management system adapted to the economic and social development of Guangdong, establishing of an IP information service platform, building an IPR training system, joint research on IPR development, constructing an IPR transfer and application system, implementing IPR aid, a green channel for patent business, and creating the National Intellectual Property Demonstration Industrial Park.

Microsoft case

The Futian Court in Shenzhen recently sentenced 11 people who violated Chinese criminal and copyright laws to make pirated Microsoft software and distribute copies to Australia, Canada, Germany, the United States and other countries, Xinhua reported.

The three principal offenders face sentences of six and a-half years, five years and three and a-half years respectively, the maximum sentences from Chinese courts for IPR infringement.

In an official statement from its Redmond, Washington headquarters in the United States shortly after the sentencing, Microsoft said it "greatly appreciates" the work done in China in "taking strong enforcement action against global software counterfeiting syndicate.

According to the court, ringleaders Wang Wenhua, Zhang Da'an and Che Tingfeng organized a group to use sophisticated facilities to replicate Windows XP Professional, Windows XP and Office 2003 as well as holograms of Microsoft's Certificate of Authenticity. They sold fake software products not only in the Chinese mainland but also in the Hong Kong and other regions via online distribution.

With concerted efforts of China's public security organs and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, transnational law enforcement staff in July 2007 cracked down on the Microsoft counterfeiting syndicate and arrested Wang, Zhang, Che and the other perpetrators.

(China Daily 01/12/2009 page9)