April 26 was World Intellectual Property Day. The New Office of the State Council held a press conference today on the current status of intellectual property protection in China in 2021. Shen Changyu, director of the State Intellectual Property Office, introduced that in the "2021 Global Innovation Index Report" released by the World Intellectual Property Organization, China ranked 12th in the world, steadily improving for 9 consecutive years.
In 2021, a total of 696,000 invention patents were authorized, and the number of high-value invention patents per 10,000 population reached 7.5, an increase of 1.2 over the previous year. Mainland applicants filed 69,500 international patent applications through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) route, ranking first in the world for the third consecutive year.
The report of the Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to strengthen the creation, protection and application of intellectual property rights. Shen Changyu introduced that in the past five years, a total of 2.531 million invention patents have been authorized, an average annual increase of 13.4%; the cumulative number of registered trademarks is 27.705 million, an average annual increase of 29.0%. The number of copyrights, new plant varieties, and layout designs of integrated circuits has also reached new highs.
The principle of intellectual property protection is written into the Civil Code. Completed a new round of revisions to the Trademark Law, Patent Law, and Copyright Law, and established the highest standard of punitive damages system in the world. The benefits of the use of intellectual property rights have accelerated. Relevant statistics and reports show that in 2020, the added value of patent-intensive industries will reach 12.13 trillion yuan, accounting for 11.97% of GDP, becoming an important support for high-quality economic development. The added value of copyright industries reached 7.51 trillion yuan, accounting for 7.39% of GDP. Of the world's leading 5,000 brands, China accounts for 408, with a total value of $1.6 trillion.
The mainland's ranking in the Global Innovation Index Report released by the World Intellectual Property Organization has risen from 22nd in 2017 to 12th in 2021, a full 10 places, ranking first among middle-income economies and one of the fastest-improving countries in the world. In particular, the number of PCT international patent applications ranked first in the world for three consecutive years, the proportion of intellectual property revenue in total trade continued to increase, and the number of science and technology clusters entering the global top 100 jumped to the second place in the world, indicating that the mainland is changing from a big country in the introduction of intellectual property rights to a big country in intellectual property creation.
The scene of the press conference. Beijing News reporter Chen Lin photographed
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How is data property protected?
Data is known as the new energy of the information age, and is juxtaposed with traditional elements such as land, capital, and technology, and is the foundation of the development of the digital economy. In 2020, the added value of the digital economy supported by data has reached 39.2 trillion yuan, accounting for 38.6% of GDP, ranking second in the world.
Shen Changyu said that in order to make these data resources flow reasonably, make full use of them, and effectively protect them, it is necessary to solve the property rights problem of data and improve the relevant system design. The Outline for the Construction of an Intellectual Property Power (2021-2035) and the 14th Five-Year Plan for the Protection and Application of Intellectual Property Rights in China both make arrangements for the construction of data property rights protection rules, requiring the implementation of data intellectual property protection projects and in-depth theoretical and practical research.
Shen Changyu, director of the State Intellectual Property Office. Beijing News reporter Chen Lin photographed
The State Intellectual Property Office is accelerating the promotion of relevant research work in combination with the functions of the department and the actual work, and has set up a special work class.
He said that the protection of data property rights should adhere to the principle of security first and development as the key, fully considering the security of data, the protection of public interests and the protection of personal information; it is necessary to fully grasp the unique attributes of data and the development law of the property rights system, to achieve a high degree of conformity between the data protection model and the characteristics of data resources, and the organic unity of data property rights protection and effective use of data; to fully respect the creative labor and capital investment of data processors, to recognize and protect the reasonable benefits of data processors; to be conducive to the flow and transaction of data. It can promote the prosperity of the data market, strengthen the digital industry, promote the digital transformation of the industry, and support the high-quality development of the economy.
At present, the State Intellectual Property Office has carried out pilot projects for data intellectual property protection in Zhejiang, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other places, and strives to obtain replicable and generalizable experience and practices in legislation, depository registration, etc., so as to provide a practical basis for subsequent system design. Among them, Zhejiang has established a public depository platform for data intellectual property rights and has begun to provide depository services for market entities.
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How to combat bad faith trademark registration?
He Zhimin, deputy director of the State Intellectual Property Office, introduced that the State Intellectual Property Office has always maintained a high-pressure posture of severely cracking down on malicious trademark registration, and concentrated on carrying out special actions to crack down on malicious trademark squatting. In the whole of last year, a total of 482,000 bad-faith registered trademarks were cracked down on in the trademark examination procedure, of which 60,400 trademarks were voluntarily rejected for malicious hoarding, and 1,628 trademarks were preemptively registered in bad faith that harmed the public interest.
He Zhimin, Deputy Director General of the State Intellectual Property Office. Beijing News reporter Chen Lin photographed
In the trademark opposition review and adjudication procedure, a total of 30,000 bad-faith registered trademarks were cracked down. In the follow-up procedure, 1729 trademarks were declared invalid on their own initiative, and the number of trademarks that were voluntarily declared invalid in accordance with their authority was 5 times that of the past 10 years combined. Under the high-pressure deterrence, some illegal personnel voluntarily gave up their maliciously registered trademarks, such as 30 interrelated trading companies in Jiujiang City, which voluntarily cancelled more than 2,200 maliciously registered trademarks under their names.
Since the beginning of this year, the State Intellectual Property Office has continued to crack down on the bad faith registration of trademarks. With a "zero tolerance" attitude, through measures such as strengthening the focus of rectification, strengthening monitoring and early warning, strengthening system governance, strengthening agency supervision, strengthening credit supervision, and strengthening coordination, we will accurately crack down on 10 typical behaviors that violate the principle of good faith, violate public order and good customs, seek improper interests, and disrupt trademark order, and actively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of market entities and the social public interest. In the first quarter of this year, 12,200 trademarks were rejected in bad faith, 1,628 trademarks were rejected in bad faith, and 707 cases were declared invalid on their own initiative in accordance with their authority. In two batches, 1742 trademarks involving the Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games, as well as their applicants and agencies, were notified and exposed in two batches.
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What has been done to promote the legislation on geographical indications?
He Zhimin introduced that at present, there are two modes of trademark protection and special protection for the protection of geographical indications in the mainland. Trademark protection is mainly based on the Trademark Law and its implementing regulations, as a collective trademark or certification mark;
After the institutional reform in 2018, the State Intellectual Property Office was re-established to be responsible for the unified authorization and protection of geographical indications, and the unified identification and unified issuance have been basically realized. On this basis, the State Intellectual Property Office proceeded from the legal system, comprehensively considered the two modes of geographical indication trademark protection and special protection, carried out in-depth thematic demonstration, studied the convergence and coordination plan, accelerated the unified legislation of geographical indications, and promoted the high-quality development of the field of geographical indications.
He introduced that on the basis of strengthening research, a legislative framework and draft recommendations for unified legislation will be formed, the rights and obligations of relevant subjects and the responsibilities of management organs will be clarified, the procedures for authorizing and confirming geographical indications will be improved, and the use of geographical indications will be actively promoted to promote the construction of regional brands and the development of local characteristic industries, and a unified protection system for special protection and trademark protection will be improved. At the same time, we will actively learn from the experience and practices of the protection of geographical indications in various countries in the world, realize the organic connection between the protection of geographical indications in China and the protection of geographical indications of various countries, and provide legal support for promoting economic and trade cooperation.
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How to improve the pattern of intellectual property protection?
Building a pattern of large-scale protection of intellectual property rights and stimulating the innovation vitality of various market entities to the greatest extent is an important construction goal of market supervision modernization. In response to a question from a reporter from the Beijing News, Shen Changyu introduced that last year's Central Economic Work Conference clearly proposed to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights and create a good environment for enterprises of all types of ownership to compete for development.
Since intellectual property rights involve many types, and the protection work involves many aspects and links, it is difficult to use a single model to achieve the protection of all types of intellectual property rights, and it is also difficult to use a single means to achieve the protection of all links. In this regard, General Secretary Xi Jinping specifically emphasized that intellectual property protection is a systematic project, covering a wide range of fields and involving many aspects, and it is necessary to comprehensively use legal, administrative, economic, technological, social governance and other means to improve the protection system from the aspects of review authorization, administrative law enforcement, judicial protection, arbitration and mediation, industry self-discipline, and citizen integrity, strengthen coordination and cooperation, and build a pattern of large-scale protection work.
He introduced that the State Intellectual Property Office has done a lot of work in building a pattern of large-scale protection of intellectual property rights. This includes strengthening the interface between administrative protection and judicial protection, cooperating with the Supreme People's Court to promote the organic unification of standards for review and confirmation of rights, judgments on infringement, administrative law enforcement, and judicial adjudication, establishing a mechanism for online appeal mediation and docking, a mechanism for ascertaining technical facts, and a mechanism for sharing data resources; establishing a normalized liaison and information sharing mechanism with the Supreme People's Procuratorate to strengthen operational support and case-handling collaboration; and jointly promoting experience and practices in administrative adjudication of patent infringement disputes with the Ministry of Justice Jointly issued opinions on strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights with the Ministry of Public Security; jointly carried out inspection and assessment of intellectual property protection with the Central Propaganda Department and the State Administration for Market Regulation; and jointly carried out special actions for the protection of intellectual property rights in the Winter Olympics with the State Administration for Market Regulation, all of which achieved good results. Taking the intellectual property protection of the Beijing Winter Olympics as an example, the "ice piers" protected by patents, trademarks, copyrights and Olympic symbols continue to sell well, and "one pier is difficult to find", which not only reflects the great success of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games itself, but also reflects the great progress of China's intellectual property protection.
In addition, the State Intellectual Property Office will promote the construction of a broader and deeper pattern of intellectual property protection, strengthen interdepartmental coordination and provincial and municipal linkage, close cross-regional law enforcement cooperation, strengthen online and offline integrated protection, form a working situation of the whole chain to protect intellectual property rights, enhance system protection capabilities, optimize the market environment and business environment, and maximize the vitality of various market players.
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What impact will the implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty have on visually impaired persons?
Wang Zhicheng, Director of the Copyright Administration Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department, introduced that the full name of the Marrakesh Treaty is the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled. The Treaty was adopted by WIPO at its Diplomatic Conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, on June 27, 2013, and entered into force on September 30, 2016, with 87 Contracting Parties.
Wang Zhicheng, Director General of the Copyright Administration Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department. Beijing News reporter Chen Lin photographed
China signed the treaty on June 28, 2013, and was one of the first signatories to the treaty. On October 23, 2021, the 31st session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress decided to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty. On February 5 this year, China deposited with the World Intellectual Property Organization the instrument of ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty signed by President Xi Jinping, which, according to the rules of entry into force, will enter into force for China on May 5, 2022, three months after its ratification.
The Marrakesh Treaty, which requires Contracting Parties to provide copyright limitations and exceptions to guarantee the right of persons with print disabilities to equal enjoyment of works and education, is the only human rights treaty in the world to date in the field of copyright. The beneficiaries of the Marrakesh Treaty included not only visually impaired persons, but also those who could not read properly due to other reasons such as visual impairments, perceptual impairments or physical disabilities.
According to the results of the second national sample survey of persons with disabilities, there are about 17.32 million visually impaired persons in the mainland. The number of people with print disabilities on the mainland is likely to be higher. After the Marrakesh Treaty enters into force for China, it will greatly enrich the spiritual and cultural life of people with print disabilities in the mainland, improve their education level, promote the overseas dissemination of excellent works from the mainland, further enhance the mainland's voice and influence in the field of international copyright, and show the mainland's international image of vigorously developing the cause of persons with disabilities and fully respecting human rights.
He introduced that the National Copyright Administration will do a good job in the implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty, further improve the supporting mechanism, formulate implementation measures that are relevant to China's reality, strengthen the guidance and supervision of authorized persons, standardize the production and provision of accessible format versions of works, strengthen cooperation with the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Accessible Books Federation, promote cross-border exchange of accessible format copies, and implement the support of the Marrakesh Treaty for persons with print disabilities.
Beijing News reporter Chen Lin
Edited by Tang Zheng Proofreader LuCy