According to information from the Chinese Ministry of Business, China had made a series of new progress in IPR protection last year. By the end of November of 2006, China set up IPR report and service centers in 50 cities, received a total of 1,014 complain cases, and transformed 657 to law enforcement department, and concluded 286 cases. In addition, the centers had provided consulting service to 24,221 clients.

Since 2004, when China established the State IPR Protection Working Group headed by Vice Primer Wu Yi and participated by 12 government departments, the coordination among all law enforcement departments has been enforced. In 2006, the Ministry of Legalization, Ministry of Culture and State Information Office as well as other two departments joined the group. This group enabled China to have a complete and effective administration mechanism.

In 2006, China declared and implemented "Action Principle of IPR Protection in 2006 and 2007" and "China IPR Protection Plan in 2006". Except a few program in legislation, 160 measures involving in 9 aspects listed in the Action Principle had been completed. China State IPR Strategy, which is still in the evaluation period, is hopefully publicized in the first half of 2007.

In the past year, China also saw more cooperation and exchanges with other countries and international organizations. In the April of 2006, Vice Primer Wu Yi led a delegation to US to attend the 17th China-US Joint Business and Trade Conference, and reached wide agreements with US party. In August 2006, the working group of Sino-US had a conference in Beijing at section director level, and then in December the conference for Deputy Minister was held in Washington, and China has even sent a delegate in IPR to Chinese embassy to Washington.

 

In Novemnber, 21st China-Europe Joint Trade Conference had an important dialogue in IPR protection and cooperation. China-European IPR Working Group had two conferences in June and November respectively in Beijing, and had signed the second term of 4-yea-long cooperation program in IPR protection starting from 2007.
In 2006, China had also witnessed a lot of exchange with Japan, Korea, ASEAN, German, Britain, Austria, Spain, Russia and Hong Kong, and had actively participated activities sponsored by WIPO, APEC as well as other regional or other multi-side conference. China had played active roles in Doha Development Agenda and other efforts solving IP issues.

 

Right now, China has established wide and deep international cooperation relations, covering trademark, patent, copyright, business secrets as well as other fields, and involving legislation, law enforcement, civil and criminal legislation and construction.

(People's Daily Online)

2007-01-30

2007-01-30