China Looks to Improve Intellectual Property Rights Protection

Posted by Reading Time: 2 minutes

Nov. 17 – At the start of the fourth China patent week in Chongqing on November 7, the Chinese government has expressed an interest in improving the nation’s intellectual property rights protection system.

The State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China released the “National Patent Business Development Strategy (2011-2020)” on November 11 and according to Gan Shaoning, the office’s vice president, the strategy will become a new milestone in China’s patent development history.

The new strategy, which maintains and intensifies the principles detailed in the “Outline of National Intellectual Property Strategy” issued on Jun 21, 2008, aims at making China a country with a “comparatively advanced system of patent creation, employment, protection and management” before 2020.

The plan specifically points out that China will improve its patent protection system through extensive international cooperation with organizations such as the World Intellectual Property Organization. It emphasizes that China will play a more positive role in the coordination of international intellectual property affairs and will further strengthen the training of elite patent professionals for global cooperation.

The strategy suggests that in order to encourage domestic industrial restructuring, it is essential to reinforce an effective system of patent creation and regulation. This is especially true in key industries that require core technologies that China has struggled to develop in the past. The government is encouraging domestic companies with technology that is based on, or that draws inspiration from, existing technology to apply for patents.

The Chinese government has said it will play a vital role in guiding the macro patent policy-making to not only make the domestic patent policies more internationalized and transparent, but to also establish a reliable patent management system. The government will also consider taking other measures such as instituting taxation policy adjustments to award enterprises that produce high value-added products with core patents, thus gradually transforming the whole country’s development mode.