China strengthens IPR protection to ensure high-quality development

China will strengthen IPR protection to guarantee high-quality development in the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), a senior intellectual property official said on April 25.

The National Intellectual Property Administration (NIPA) will improve the top design of IPR protection according to the outline of the country's 14th five-year plan for national economic and social development, Shen Changyu, head of the NIPA, said at a press conference.

The NIPA has basically completed the drafting of the IPR protection and application plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan period and is promoting a new round of research on revising the Trademark Law, Shen said.

In 2020, China handled 31,300 trademark violation cases and over 42,000 administrative adjudication cases related to patent infringement disputes. It will continue to implement strict IPR protection system and punitive compensation system, he added.

Shen said that China will further improve its funding and reward policies on patents, highlight high-quality development, and protect and encourage high-value patents.

The number of high-value invention patents per 10,000 people has been included as an important indicator in the outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan, which would promote the shift from pursuing quantity to improving quality in IP work, Shen added.

China moved up to 14th place in the Global Innovation Index of 2020 by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), ranking first among the mid-income economies globally.

In 2020, China was the largest user of the WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty system, with nearly 69,000 applications.

China will expand the autonomy of universities and research institutes in dealing with IPR issues and promote the commercialization and application of patents, Shen said.

This year, China launched a three-year plan to offer monetary incentives to provincial-level regions that have made achievements in fostering patent technology transfers from small and medium-sized enterprises.

China's total intellectual property pledge financing hit 218 billion yuan (about $33.57 billion) in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 43.9 percent, according to the NIPA.

The NIPA now plans to improve IPR financial services and make intellectual property pledge financing accessible to more industrial parks and benefit more enterprises.

Shen also pledged to expand IPR legislation to new fields and new forms of businesses, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data.

The NIPA is actively listening to the opinions of academia and industry experts on whether AI-generated works and inventions constitute new IPRs and who should claim their ownership, and will design relevant institutions accordingly, Shen added.