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China's IPR protection efforts garner
praise
TIANJIN - China's
efforts to protect intellectual property rights (IPR)
have won praise from foreign investors.
An
improving IPR protection system in China has reduced
foreign investors' worries about infringement and
increased foreign business people's willingness to
invest in China, said Masayuki Hosokawa, chief
representative of the Beijing Office of Yamaha Motor Co.
Currently, Yamaha is preparing for several
investment projects in China, where Hosokawa's view has
been echoed by many foreign investors in the country.
Wu Haipeng, with the research and development
center of the LG Electronics Tianjin Appliance Co, said
foreign businesses were also active in applying for
patents for their products as China exerted greater
effort to protect IPR.
As the biggest subsidiary
of LG in China, the LG Tianjin company submitted 1,080
patent applications in the first eight months this year,
or 30 percent of Tianjin's total for the same period.
Patent applications by business people from
developed countries including the United States have
also grown rapidly in recent years.
The top 10
patent applicants in China were all from developed
countries and patent applications made by foreign
entrepreneurs accounted for almost 20 percent of the
total in China.
China has worked hard to create
a sound environment for IPR protection. Since the Patent
Law was enacted in 1985, China has promulgated and
amended a series of laws and regulations regarding
copyrights, trademarks, computer software and integrated
circuits designing.
The Chinese government has
worked out a mechanism under which IPR departments,
joined by public security departments, industrial and
commercial administrations, copyright bureaus and
technologies supervision departments, intensify efforts
to crack down on criminal activities against IPR
protection.
Wang Cheng, deputy director of the
Tianjin IPR Bureau, said the joint team in Tianjin
discovered and has so far this year handled 35 cases
involving infringement of trademarks. The joint team
also solved 23 disputes over patents.
In April,
IPR bureaus of 16 Chinese cities and provinces including
Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai jointly set up a mechanism
for trans-regional cooperation in IPR protection.
Then in November, heads of IPR bureaus of 16
Yangtze River delta cities met in Shanghai and swore to
make concerted efforts to protect IPR and crack down on
infringement acts. Meanwhile, local governments in China
have also worked out effective measures for protecting
IPR.
Central China's Hunan province holds
regular meetings on IPR protection, publishes a white
paper on IPR and issues reports on cases involving IPR.
Tianjin launched online services in April to handle
disputes over patents and cases involving fake patents.
Statistics show that IPR and patent
administrations of various levels in China handled 1,291
cases involving disputes over patents and industrial and
commercial administrations across China handled 39,105
cases involving infringement of trademarks in 2002.
Last year, 6,107 cases involving copyright
infringement and disputes were handled and 67.9 million
pirated products, such as CDs, LCDs, VCDs and books were
confiscated. Courts across China tried 6,201 civil cases
involving IPR.
Cheng said better protection of
IPR was an important part of a better investment
environment and was conducive to the development of
foreign trade and absorbing investment.
Statistics show that China approved 32,696
foreign-financed enterprises in the first 10 months this
year, up 17.99 percent from the corresponding period
last year. In addition, involved contractual foreign
investment totaled US$88.683 billion, a rise of 33.75
percent from last year.
(Asia Pulse/XIC)
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