Significant intellectual property protection events have continuously occurred in China in January one after another. In this article, China IP Magazine gathered these and presented for our readers.

Hainan Intellectual Property Court Accepted Cases

A new intellectual property (IP) court based on South China's Hainan Island opened for operations on Monday, according to local authorities.

Named after the Hainan free-trade port, the new court covers IP-related civil, administrative and criminal cases in the province, such as those related to patents, technical secrets, computer software, new plant varieties and layout-designs of integrated circuits.

The court is expected to improve the overall judicial protection mechanism of intellectual property rights and further explore judicial reforms, according to the draft decision.

Fast IPR Service Centers Continuously Established

China has established or is working to establish 25 service centers to provide fast responses to intellectual property rights (IPR) issues.

The fast IPR public service centers aim to provide county-level industry clusters with faster pre-review processes, confirmation and rights protection on IPR-related issues.

Some regions are undergoing industrial transformations, upgrading from labor-intensive to knowledge-intensive industries. Faster and more efficient local IPR services will empower these regions to provide better IPR-related services, such as a fast IPR review process for the physical designs of quick-selling products.

Director of CNIPA, Shen Changyu: Comprehensively Strengthen IPR Protection and Promote High-quality Development

During the 13th Five-Year Plan Period, there have been remarkable results in China's national intellectual property system. The national intellectual property strategy outline has been successfully completed, as well as the main objectives and tasks set.

First is the historical reconstruction of the intellectual property management system. By the reform and deployment of the party and state institutions, China National Intellectual Property Administration was reorganized, and achieved centralized and unified management of patents, trademarks, geographical indications of origin, and integrated circuit layout designs. Patent and trademark enforcement are unified into the comprehensive enforcement of market supervision. The coordination between intellectual property rights and quality management, standardization, anti-monopoly, and drug supervision has been significantly enhanced. Through institutional reform, the national intellectual property system has further improved its management efficiency.

Second, the construction of the intellectual property legal system has achieved fruitful results. Intellectual property has been written into the General Principles of the Civil Law and the Civil Code successively, established major legal principles in the field of intellectual property. The fourth revision of the Patent Law was completed, established a punitive compensation system for infringement, added a drug patent term compensation system and an early resolution mechanism for drug patent disputes, and extended the design patents' protection period. The fourth revision of the Trademark Law was completed, the standard of punitive damages for infringement was significantly increased, and malicious registration of trademarks was regulated. Regulations such as Patent Agency Regulations, and the Olympic Symbol Protection Regulations have been revised.

Third, the effectiveness of intellectual property protection has been greatly improved. There were forty intellectual property protection centers and 22 rapid rights protection centers established. The rights protection assistance service network covers China, and there are 118 standardized markets for intellectual property protection. More than one hundred intellectual property dispute mediation organizations and arbitration institutions have been cultivated. A national overseas intellectual property dispute response guidance center and ten sub-centers have been established. During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, the social satisfaction of intellectual property protection increased from 72 points to 80 points. The ranking in the global innovation index increased from 29th to 14th, and the ranking in the business environment report increased to the 31st place.

Fourth is the rapid improvement of intellectual property quality and efficiency. In-depth implementation of the patent quality improvement project, trademark brand strategy and geographical indication application promotion project, and the construction of a strong province and city with intellectual property rights has been improved. The number of domestic invention patents per 10,000 people (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) reached 15.8, exceeded the target set in the national "13th Five-Year Plan". The number of valid registered trademarks reached 30.173 million, and the valid number of Madrid international trademark registrations reached 44,223. A total of 192 regional brand collective trademark certification trademarks, 6,085 geographical indication trademarks were registered, 2,391 geographical indication protection products were recognized, and the output value of geographical indication products exceeded 1 trillion yuan. In conjunction with the Ministry of Finance, 37 key cities have been supported to develop an intellectual property operation service system, and 13 intellectual property operation platforms (centers) will be deployed. There were 53,000 enterprises passed the certification of intellectual property standards, and 5,729 national intellectual property advantage demonstration enterprises were cultivated. The total amount of intellectual property pledge financing reached 709.5 billion yuan, doubling that during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period. The import and export volume of intellectual property royalties increased from USD 23.11 billion in 2015 to USD 40.98 billion in 2019, an average annual increase of 15.4%. There were 130 Chinese patent gold awards selected, created new sales exceeding 1 trillion yuan. Especially in 2019, the number of PCT international patent applications ranked first globally; the added value of patent-intensive industries reached 11.5 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7%, which received widespread attention and positive comments in China and from overseas.

Fifth, the reform of "delegating control, delegating, managing, and serving" intellectual property rights continued to deepen. Issued the "Implementation Opinions on Deepening the Reform of "Delegation of Power, Management and Services" in the Field of Intellectual Property and Creating a Good Business Environment" to promote the in-depth development of the reform. The quality and efficiency of intellectual property examination continued to improve. The overall examination period for invention patents was reduced to 20 months, which was reduced by two months compared with the initial period of the "13th Five-Year Plan" period. Trademark examination period compressed to four months, more than half of the initial pressure of the "13th Five-Year Plan" period. A total of 47.17 billion yuan in patent and trademark business processing fees were reduced. It was significantly relaxed the patent agency industry's entry barriers, actively promoted the pilot opening up to the outside world, and increased the patent and trademark agency industry's supervision. There were 28 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) and 15 sub-provincial cities across the country set up public service organizations for intellectual property information. Layout and build 51 World Intellectual Property Organization Technology and Innovation Support Centers, and 60 universities and national intellectual property information service centers. Patent and trademark electronic application rates reached 98.8% and 98.0%, respectively. There were 27 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country actively promoted the integration of patent and trademark acceptance windows, realized "one spot for all applications." Cooperated with the evaluation of China's business environment and optimized the setting of intellectual property indicators.

Sixth, major steps have been taken in the international cooperation and exchange of intellectual property rights. General Secretary Xi Jinping has witnessed the signing of international agreements on the intellectual property many times, and the role of intellectual property in national diplomacy has become more prominent. Deeply participate in multilateral affairs under the framework of the World Intellectual Property Organization. Two sessions of the "Belt and Road" intellectual property high-level meetings were successfully held. General Secretary Xi Jinping sent a special letter of congratulations. Eight practical cooperation projects have achieved important results. Actively promote China-US-Europe, Japan-Korea, BRIC, China-ASEAN, China-Africa intellectual property practical cooperation, and establish Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) with 30 countries and regions. Participated in completing the first phase of the Sino-US economic and trade agreement, the Sino-European Geographical Indication Protection and Cooperation Agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) and other consultations and negotiations. Successfully held the World Geographical Indications Conference. The "Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances" officially came into effect. The intellectual property management standard for the innovation process led by the formulation was approved and issued by the International Organization for Standardization.

Seventh, the foundation for the development of intellectual property rights has been continuously consolidated. There were seven patent examination collaboration centers outside Beijing, and five local trademark examination collaboration centers were established. The World Intellectual Property Day, National Intellectual Property Publicity Week, China Patent Week and other activities have been continued to be held, and a good IP public opinion environment has been created. The influence of a series of activities such as China International Patent Technology and Products Fair, China International Design Expo, China Intellectual Property Annual Conference, and Intellectual Property Service Miles is increased. There were more than 60,000 intellectual property service organizations with over 800,000 employees. There were 165 pilot and demonstration schools for intellectual property education in primary and secondary schools nationwide, 26 national intellectual property training bases, and 93 colleges and universities offering undergraduate majors in intellectual property. The title of intellectual property teacher is included in the national title series. A new National Intellectual Property Expert Advisory Committee was established. The first China Intellectual Property Academic Annual Conference was held. The All-China Patent Attorneys Association's re-election has been completed.

Director of China National Intellectual Property Administration, Shen Changyu put forward the overall thinking of intellectual property work during the 14th Five-Year Plan and the key tasks in 2021: 

--Adhere to the theme of high-quality development, take the overall strengthening of intellectual property protection as the mainline; 

--Dedicated to improving the quality of intellectual property creation, utilization efficiency, management efficiency and service level; 

--Vigorously strengthen international cooperation in intellectual property protection, and provide strong support for building a modern economic system, stimulating the innovative vitality of society, and promoting the construction of a new development pattern.

The year 2021 is the first of the "14th Five-Year Plan" and the first year of implementing the Intellectual Property Power Strategy Outline. The following eight aspects were stated:

(1) Do a good job in the top-level design of intellectual property rights, start the implementation of the strategy of strengthening the country with intellectual property rights and the "14th Five-Year Plan";

(2) Improve the intellectual property legal system and improve the level of legalization of intellectual property work;

(3) Vigorously improve the quality of intellectual property creation and promote high-quality development;

(4) Comprehensively strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights and promote the construction of a high-standard market system;

(5) Vigorously improve the efficiency of intellectual property transformation and utilization, and support the development of the real economy;

(6) Implementing the improvement project of intellectual property public service capabilities to serve innovative development better;

(7) Coordinate the promotion of international cooperation and competition in intellectual property protection, and better serve the overall situation of the country's opening up;

(8) Consolidate the foundation for the development of intellectual property business, and focus on improving management and service capabilities.