On December 30, the "Regulations of Shanghai Municipality on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights" were reviewed and approved at the 28th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 15th Municipal People's Congress, and will be implemented on March 1 next year. The promulgation and implementation of the "Regulations" is an important measure for Shanghai to implement the Party Central Committee and the State Council’s relevant decisions and deployments, comprehensively strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights, and stimulate innovation and creativity. The Regulations contain six chapters and 46 articles, with the following highlights:

First, to clarify the principles and requirements of intellectual property protection

Second, to solidify the results of the reform of intellectual property systems

Third, to strengthen the intellectual property coordination mechanism

Fourth, to clarify the responsibilities of the intellectual property department

The Regulations clarified the responsibilities of Shanghai’s intellectual property, copyright, market supervision and management, agriculture, rural areas, forestry departments, and market supervision. It based on Shanghai’s institutional reforms in the intellectual property field, combined with the positioning of comprehensive legislation, and the law enforcement duties of administrative, cultural and tourism departments. In accordance with the requirements of the "Regulations", the Municipal Intellectual Property Department will play the role of organization and coordination, further strengthen the coordination and cooperation between intellectual property-related management and law enforcement agencies, and establish working mechanisms such as information notification, information consultation, and joint publication.

Fifth, strengthen administrative and judicial protection

The "Regulations" clarified a series of requirements for strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights. For example, it clearly promotes the establishment of a unified comprehensive intellectual property information service platform, and requires the relevant management departments of intellectual property rights to strengthen supervision and inspection of areas where intellectual property infringement is concentrated and risk-prone areas. Furthermore, clarify that the relevant Administrative Departments of intellectual property can carry out mediation in accordance with the law; clarify that the People’s Courts promote the reform of the civil, criminal, and administrative “three-in-one” trial mechanism for intellectual property cases, and establish a judicial confirmation mechanism for administrative mediation agreements; the People’s Procuratorate explores and promotes public interest litigation in the field of intellectual property, and give full play to the legal supervision function, etc. At the same time, the Regulations clearly require Shanghai to establish and improve the connection mechanism between administrative law enforcement and judicial protection of intellectual property protection, and require the relevant Administrative Departments of intellectual property to transfer suspected criminal intellectual property violations to the Public Security Bureau for handling.

Sixth, promote social governance of intellectual property