This June 5 marked the fifth anniversary of the implementation of the Outline of National Intellectual Property Strategy. In accordance with the overall requirements of the outline, the IPR works have achieved remarkable progress in creation, utilization, protection and management. WIPO Director General Francis Gurry highly appreciated Chinese government's efforts in advancing IPR development, and said that China's experience in implementing the strategy and conducting it as the national strategy should be popularized and learned by other nations.

Ability to create IPR improved rapidly

The year 2012 witnessed new breakthroughs in the IPR registration and grants in China. Applications and grants of invention patents, utility model patents and design patents mounted up to 2.051 million and 1.255  million respectively. Moreover, invention applications have topped the world. The valid patents for invention owned by domestic right holders exceeded the numbers of foreign owners for the first time. Invention patents owned by each 10,000 citizens reached 3.23. By the end of 2012, SIPO accepted a total of 19,926 international applications under PCT, ranking the 4th in the world, with applications by ZTE, a leading company in providing telecommunications equipment and network solutions, ranking first in the world for two consecutive years. China also made great breakthroughs in trademark applications, with 1.648 million applications for trademark registration accepted in 2012, maintaining the first in the world. In 2012, a total of more than 688,000 work copyrights and 139,000 software copyrights were registered, which both creat record. Ministry of Agriculture accepted more than 1,000 applications for plant variety throughout 2012 and State Forestry Administration accepted 148 applications for forestry variety rights.

Utilization of IPR advanced obviously

Patent licensing contracts for the record amounted to 88,505 in total between 2008 and 2012, and this number was estimated to reach 100,000 in 2013. In the past five years, the proportion of patent utilization by the enterprises increased year by year, IPR pledge financing developed rapidly, with the number  of the registration of patent pledge contracts increased for five consecutive years and 40 billion yuan of pledge loan has been credited by the banks, an annual increase of 70%. In 2012, 21.46 billion yuan and 2.751 billion yuan of pledge loan of trademark and copyright have been credited respectively. New breakthroughs have been made in key technologies and some technical standards have been made by Chinese innovators. The increasing IPRs have extended social economic benefits. Enterprises as main innovators continuously contribute more to the social and economic development, more and more Chinese companies such as ZTE and Huawei have explored overseas market with IPRs.

Capability to protect IPR greatly enhanded

In the past five years, the Chinese government has strengthened IPR protection and the IPR environment has been continuously improved. In 2012, local courts around China accepted 87,419 new IPR civil cases of first instance, triple than those in 2007. The procuratorial organs nationwide accepted the request for approval of arresting suspects involving 5,256 IPR criminal cases, doubled than those in 2007. In 2012, national public security organs cracked 44,000 cases of IPR infringement and counterfeiting with a total value of 11.31 billion yuan. The national customs departments seized 15,000 batches of infringing goods and a total of 91 million products, and the General Administration of Customs accepted 4,379 applications for IPR customs protection recordation. The national industry and commerce system investigated 120,400 infringement and counterfeiting cases and confiscated 851 million yuan. The national IPR system accepted 2,510 patent disputes cases, investigated and punished 6,512 patent counterfeiting cases. A total of 282 online piracy cases were investigated and 129 websites were shut down by the copyright authority nationwide. It's worth noting that since the State Council launched the special campaign on cracking down IPR infringement and counterfeit and shoddy goods, a favorable market environment has been continuously improved. The treaty to protect the intellectual property rights of film and television performers worldwide was finalized in Beijing last year with 185 member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization, including China and the U.S., signing the document. The new treaty  for the first time brought audiovisual performers into the fold of the international copyright framework in a comprehensive way.

Social IPR awareness remarkably enhanced

In the past five years, IPR-related departments created a new atmosphere for IPR protection by means of social publicity, special training, media report, and thematic lectures. Meanwhile, China launched the IPR Publicity Week nationwide, social awareness has been obviously enhanced. According to a social survey, the level of IPR acknowledgement, including patent, copyright, and trademark, has been over than 90% among the public, and a majority of the respondents oppose the piracy and support genuine. The survey shows that the piracy rate has dropped to 11.8% in 2012 from 15% in 2008.

(Source: China IP News)