On January 14, 2008, Yin Xintian, SIPO spokesman and director of SIPO Legal Affairs Department, was invited to have an interview at Xinhua News Agency website's Dialogue with Spokesman program. He introduced the progress of third amendment of Patent Law, formulation of the National IP Strategy, development of patent application as well as quality of China's patent application, and then answered questions from internet.

 

The report to 17th CPC National Congress asks to implement IP Strategy, Yin said, and in January 2005, the State Council established the National Leading Office of IP Strategy Formulation, which is headed by Vice Primer Wu Yi and consists of senior officials of some 28 central government departments for better to lead formulation of the National IP Strategy. The Strategy includes one outline and 20 research reports. The Outline is the principal part of the National IP Strategy, covering IP situation analysis, guidance, principles, strategic target and key pints, while the 20 research reports will have profound analysis of current situation of each field and each part of IP, and also give concrete measures how to complete China's IP systems in IP creation, management, application and protection. Now formulation of the reports comes to the end, while the framework of principal part has formed. So in general, the whole formulation of the National IP Strategy is to be finished and the focus has been shifted to implementation of the strategy, Yin said. So, SIPO is quite confident with China's IP work now after the Strategy is implemented.

 

Further completing China's IP law system, according to Yin, is an important part of the Strategy, and relevant amendment and formulation of IP laws are therefore undergoing. SIPO has finished the third amendment of the Patent Law after hearing suggestions from various circles of society, and submitted to the State Council for further deliberation. The new Patent Law has been listed as one of key laws for China's legistration plan in 2008. In addition to this, the State Administration of Industry and Commerce is now busy with the amendment of the Law of Trademark.

 

According to the spokesman, by December 24, 2007, SIPO had accepted more than 4 million patent applications, and the invention application from China took bigger proportion in the whole application from 47.8 percent in the first million applications to 60.8 percent in the fourth million.

 

Except patent application, the trademark application has also been numbering first in the world for years, more and more literature and arts have been enjoyed protection by the Law of Copyright.

 

So generally speaking, each field of China's IP work has made significant progress in the past two decades.

 

When answering a question whether the world-level patent application quantity means China's innovation capacity has also reached international level, Yin said that China's innovation capacity still has a big gap with that of developed countries, as the application quantity just means the progress of China's IP work, and Chinese enterprises and research institutes have much stronger sense of IPR protection. As a country with 1.3 billion people, the application of each thousand people is actually still quite low. So, China has to continue its efforts to promote enterprises, institutes and individuals to apply IPR, and thus have more independent IPR.

 

"We must be acutely aware that China's innovation capacity is still far behind of with America, Europe and Japan, and it is impossible to catch these countries in a short time. So China's technological level of patent application and application quality will have a long way to go," Yin said.

 

In term of some people submit utility model and design patent applications and are also granted the patents by making use of no substantial examination of the two patent applications in current system, Mr. Yin said SIPO has released relevant regulation and adopted some measures to upgrade patent quality and guide applicants to be honest in their application.

 

When talking about IPR piracy and infringement in China, and more and more pressures from developed countries to China because of IP issues, Trips, reached as a result of substantive concessions made by developing countries, has become an inhibiting magic phrase used by developed countries to developing ones frequently, so in 2004 Brail, Argentina and some other countries put down a motion on IP and development, and after three-years' debate, the WIPO General Assembly finally passed the WIPO Development Agenda based on the motion in last September. This is a milestone document, and the process passing this document indicates that IPR protection has been widely valued on the one hand, and is a field full of contradictions between developed and developing countries on the other. Having been aware of the situation is quite helpful for China to complete its IP system, and Chinese government is confident to solve the existed problems in IP field and give the world a new image by its arduous efforts, Mr. Yin added. 

2008-01-17

2008-01-17