After approved by the National Development and Reform Commission on December 16, Dongfeng Motor Group, the second largest automobile maker in China, announced that it has singed a contract for the creation of a new joint venture company with France's Renault. In 2003, Dongfeng Group also established a joint venture with Nissan, while Renault has owned a 44% share of NISSAN. According to the contract, the new joint venture has a total investment of 7.76 billion yuan, and 55% of which was owned by Dongfeng, and the other 45% was owned by Renault.

"in recent years, IPR has become the competition focus of automobile industry, the strong R&D strength of the Golden Triangle-Dongfeng, Renault and Nissan laid a solid foundation for powerful IPR advantages, "said Cao Xinming, executive deputy director of the IPR research center of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law. "The combination of the three companies has not only strengthened IPR ability, but also is a successful start for creating their own brands." Cao added.

"No matter Renault or Nissan, what concerns us most is their stronger R&D and IPR ability, that's why we initiate collaboration," a relevant principal of IPR department of Dongfeng told to CIP News reporter. "With fierce IPR competition in the automobile industry, a company could not participated in the market competition without strong R&D ability and IPR." added by the principal.

As national patent commercialization pilot base, Dongfeng Group has filed 2,300 patent applications and obtained 1,500 patents since the 11th Five Year Plan. The number of patent application and grants patent rank top in the domestic automobile industry, and the number of granted patent has been ranking the 1st for consecutive 4 years in Hubei province.

As of now, Dongfeng Grup has registered 1,271 trademarks in China and 561 in foreign countries. The "东风" trademark has become a well-known products in domestic automobile industry. "The new joint venture will give new impetus to create own brand. The production and sales of Dongfeng commercial vehicle is ranking the first position in the global commercial vehicle market, and the sales volume of homegrown brand has accounted for more than 75% of the total sales volume " said a principle of Dongfeng Group.

Dongfeng Group always consider technological innovation as a tool to create its own brand. In recent years, in a bid to create own brand, Dongfeng Group develop a R&D system of three kinds, which are S&T decision-making (technology commission), S&T management (development department), R&D (dominated by technology center, and participated by such centers of JVs, subsidiaries, development centers, and research institutions), and R&D expenditure has maintained more than 5% of sales volume.

"Such kinds of joint venture will speed up the absorption and re-innovation of China's automobile industry, which is also an effective way to improve the industry's IPR ability and market competition."said Cao.　　

(China IP News)