Shanghai handled over 60 cases of foreign-related patent infringement disputes

Shanghai has handled more than 60 administrative adjudication cases of foreign-related patent infringement disputes and investigated and dealt with more than 1,000 foreign-related trademark infringement cases over the past three years, said top executive of the city's intellectual property watchdog.

Also, nearly 100 trademarks of foreign-funded enterprises have been included in the city's list of key trademark protection in the same time frame, said Rui Wenbiao, director of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration, at a municipal news briefing ahead of the World Intellectual Property Day, which falls on Friday this year.

"All such endeavors were aimed to ensure that IP rights of domestic and foreign enterprises are equally treated and protected," said Rui at the news briefing on Thursday, adding that foreign-funded enterprises are an important force in Shanghai's economic and social development.

In response to cross-provincial IP protection that foreign-funded enterprises are concerned about, the eastern metropolis further strengthened law enforcement cooperation within the Yangtze River Delta region over the past year, said Rui.

"Major cross-regional cases were submitted to the National Intellectual Property Administration for administrative rulings so as to form a collective force to jointly crack down on cross-regional infringements," he said.

Shanghai also unveiled IP protection guidelines and action plans in some of the city's major business areas, including e-commerce and pharmaceutical procurement, in recent years to better protect parties involved, including foreign-funded enterprises, according to Rui.

In the next step, the city will gather pace for the construction of an international IP protection highland, and continue to create an ideal environment of IP protection for enterprises from all over the world to invest and thrive in Shanghai.

Shanghai's endeavors in IP protection have begun to bear fruits. The city rose to the fifth place in the global rankings for the place with the best science and technology clusters in a report by the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2023.