2019 IP Plan: Ease Trade Friction through Cooperation
According to the National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), the 2019 plan for implementing the national intellectual property strategy and accelerating the building of an IP powerhouse has been issued recently. Compared with plans in the past five years, the 2019 plan focuses on “strengthening risk prevention and control abroad”, and makes it clear for the first time that “efforts should be made in economic and trade intellectual property”. As China is promoting industrial transformation and upgrading, the trade volume of intellectual property accounts for an increasingly larger share in international trade, and intellectual property competition and cooperation have now become inevitable issues for Chinese enterprises to go global.
Ease trade friction
The 106 specific measures in the 2019 plan clarify that “we should make full use of the existing bilateral and multilateral intellectual property dialogue and cooperation mechanisms to strengthen cooperation and communication in this field and ease trade friction. We should also promote China-US economic and trade consultations and solve IP-related problems.”
The gradual increase of trade volume in intellectual property fully showcases that foreign trade in China is now developing from a labor-intensive industry to one with high added value. However, different standards of different countries for implementing IP-related strategies and protecting IPR have made IP-related disputes a cause for international trade friction.
To solve relevant problems, the 2019 plan promotes “strengthening the tracking and research of latest developments in the world, improving early warning and feedback mechanisms, releasing IP-related information and competition of major industries, and issuing risk information in time.”
In terms of international intellectual property cooperation, China has entered into almost all international treaties in this regard, signed 171 bilateral and multilateral cooperation agreements and MOUs with 63 countries, regions and international organizations, and started cooperation with 50 WIPO members.
Establish assistance network
During the two sessions this year, Shen Changyu, Commissioner of CNIPA, said that CNIPA would try to establish overseas intellectual property protection center to strengthen China’s overseas IPR protection.
To this end, the 2019 plan also shows that efforts will be made in establishing IP service center for Chinese enterprises in important international exhibitions. Researches will be conducted to establish an overseas protection and assistance mechanism and a national-level guidance center for dealing with overseas disputes. At the same time, a platform for overseas IP-related problems and cases will be put in place, which is part of efforts to make overseas protection and assistance network a reality. There will also be an overseas intellectual property protection alliance for Chinese enterprises and a protection fund.
What enterprises should do to go global
Competition and cooperation are two sides of the same coin. Tan Jian, vice director of the IP Service Center of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), believes that the reason why Chinese enterprises face IP-related problems lies in their weak awareness and inability of rights protection, limited information, mismatch between services provided and needed, as well as poor performance of risk prevention and control.
To solve these problems, Li Hongjiang, a partner of Guantao Law Firm, suggests that before starting business operations in foreign countries, enterprises should do the following three things: first, they should know their own products and relevant patents in overseas industries; second, they should learn about foreign competitors, their products, and their patents; finally, they should be fully aware of local laws, regulations and policies concerning intellectual property.
July 31, 2019
Source: Beijing Business Today
Photo from: 6199pic.com
