Source: China IP News

According to a regular briefing held by the State Council Information Office last Wednesday, China’s aggressive deployment of tasks and achievements in IPR protection are acknowledged worldwide. Zhao Gang, vice-commissioner of China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), elaborated on the latest progresses of IPR protection and interacted with reporters together with department heads for laws and protection.  

Zhao said, the Central Committee of the Party and the State Council highly values the role of IPR protection. The Government Work Report 2019 calls for strengthening of IPR protection across the board. General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed, IPR protection is the most significant part and greatest motivation in improving the entire property protection system. Premier Li Keqiang debriefed on enhancing IPR protection at the 57th Executive Meeting of the State Council on July 17. CNIPA has zealously executed the decisions by the Central Committee and the State Council, worked together with other government agencies to enhance IPR protection and attained marvelous results. 

A number of measures to strengthen IPR protection are currently being taken by the CNIPA, including: accelerating revision of the patent law, trademark law and other laws and regulations; improving the quality and efficiency of patent examination to increase the legitimacy of the sourcde; combating IPR infringements and counterfeiting via special campaigns; strengthening enforcement guidance, unifying enforcement standards and normalizing enforcement protocols; ensuring inter-agency supervision of major cases; building a group of IPR protection centers; developing mechanisms responding to IPR disputes happening overseas and establishing a national centralized assistance center; building an IPR credit system; and intensifying international cooperation  of IPR protection.

According to Zhao, CNIPA, together with other agencies, will focus on strengthening building of various mechanisms, strengthening administrative and judicial protection, speeding up patent examination, building an intelligent trademark registration system, intensifying international cooperation. In addition, it will implement the tasks in strengthening IPR protection and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of market entities laid out at the 57th executive meeting of the State Council.

In the first half of 2019, the number of foreign invention patent applications in China reached 78,000, up 8.6%. The number of foreign trademark applications in China was 127,000, up 15.4%. According to Zhao’s response to a reporter from Economics Daily, the growth of the figures is a reflection of the attraction of our market to foreign companies as well as their confidence in China’s IPR system and climate for doing business.

Social satisfaction of IPR protection in China increased from 63.69 points in 2012 to 76.88 points in 2018, according to the survey. The Business Confidence Survey 2019 published this May by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China showed that about 60% among 585 surveyed EU companies in China agree that the administrative and judicial protection of China’s IPR is significantly strengthened. According to the International Intellectual Property Index Report published by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America in March, the most outstanding achievements are those in the improvement of online retailing and patent enforcement for pharmaceutical product.