China's top 10 intellectual property rights (IPR) protection practices and outstanding enforcement agencies over the past year were announced at a celebration to mark the 11th anniversary of the Quality Brands Protection Committee (QBPC) on June 24 in Beijing.

The business coalition - whose members represent more than $70 billion in investment and hundreds of thousands of jobs in China - began giving awards for best IPR protection practices in 2002.

This year's best IPR protection cases include fake medicine uncovered in Guangzhou city and Taiwan, a trademark dispute in Fengcheng city of Liaoning province, infringement on Honeywell's trademark in Fu'an city of Fujian province and cross-border trade in copycat goods between Southeast Asia and Guangzhou that was uncovered by Huangpu customs.

Awards were given to enforcement departments including local police, administrations of industry and commerce, the courts, prosecutors and customs.

Long-term benefits

"Protection of IPR might be tough now, but it will bring about long-term benefits," said Zhang Guangquan from the public security bureau in Cangnan county, Zhejiang province, which was one of the award winners.

"The entire nation is facing improvements in industries, the investment climate and opportunities for sustainable development," said the police officer.

Yet "all that also means severer conditions and harder IPR protection work for us", Zhang said.

"But we as IPR protectors will start anew to safeguard the economic development in a healthy way," he added.

"A decade ago, when overseas companies ran into intellectual property disputes, they did not know where to seek help because of insufficient knowledge of relevant policies," said Zhang Wei'an, QBPC chairman and senior IP counsel at General Electric.

"All these years we have been communicating with the Chinese government. We have learned that the government is listing to us," Zhang said.

Zhang told China Daily that the QBPC was considering organizing the award winners for a lecture tour around the country.

"By analyzing successful cases, we can give advice to the Chinese government and enable other government departments, companies and organizations to learn from that experience," he said.

More than 100 participants attended the ceremony, including government officials, scholars and delegates from foreign chambers of commerce, world IPR protection organizations and QBPC member multinationals.

The QBPC, registered under the China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment, nominated the China General Administration of Customs for an award it received in mid-June from the Global Anti-Counterfeiting Group (GACG) for its achievements, openness and transparency in protecting IPR.

The Ministry of Commerce and the economic crimes investigation department of the Ministry of Public Security were honored as Commended Public Sector Organizations by the GACG.

(Source: China Daily)