IPR enforcement strengthens in 2008

Editor's note: The year 2008 carried great weight for enforcing the international property rights (IPR) system in China. In addition to marking the 30th anniversary of China's reforms, it was also the inaugural year for the implementation of the national intellectual property (IP) strategy. The Chinese IPR system received 828,328 patent applications and 698,000 applications for trademark registration last year.

After China launched its Compendium of the National Intellectual Property Strategy, the State Intellectual Property Office released a white paper on China's intellectual property protection issues in 2008.

The white paper is a summarization of last year's report on IPR protection in China and includes eight parts detailing various aspects of intellectual property. These include revisions and amendments to legislation, enforcement of IPR regulations, judicial protections, Olympic IPR protections and international IPR cooperation.

China Business Weekly will publish the full text of the white paper in a series during the following weeks. The third part on IPR enforcement activities was published on June 29. Below is the fourth part of the text:

IV. Leading role of judicial protection is further enhanced. Interests of right holders and the public are effectively upheld

In 2008, with the collective efforts of courts and IPR judges, trials of IPR cases continued to make tremendous progress. Courts of law nationwide accepted 24,406 cases and resolved 23,518 first-instance IPR civil cases, - up 36.52 percent and 35.2 percent, respectively, from a year earlier.

Among them were: 4,074 patent cases, up 0.82 percent; 6,233 trademark cases, up 61.69 percent; 10,951 copyright cases, up 50.78 percent; 623 technology contracts cases, down 6.88 percent; 1,185 unfair competition cases, down 1.58 percent, and 1,340 other types of IPR cases, up 58.58 percent.

The courts concluded 1,139 first-instance IPR civil cases involving foreign parties (up 70.51 percent) and 225 first-instance IPR civil cases involving parties from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan (down 30.34 percent).

The courts also accepted 4,759 cases and resolved 4,699 second-instance IPR civil cases - up 66.11 percent and 63.73 percent, respectively. The courts accepted 102 and resolved 71 cases for retrial - up 161.54 percent and 57.78 percent, respectively.

In terms of IPR criminal justice, local courts in 2008 resolved 3,326 IPR criminal cases and sentenced 5,388 suspects.

Among the cases resolved, 996 involved criminal violations of IPR rules - up 34.78 percent year-on-year.

In these cases, 1,657 suspects were sentenced, up 20.86 percent. Another 610 cases involved the manufacturing and distribution of goods with inferior quality involving IPR violations.

In these cases 1,040 suspects were sentenced. Another 2,667 suspects were sentenced on counts of illegal business operations involving IPR violations, and 13 were sentenced on other counts.

Courts heard more administrative cases in 2008, as well.

In 2008, local courts received 1,074 cases and resolved 1,032 first-instance IPR administrative cases.

Among them were 578 patent cases (down 3.51 percent) 484 trademark cases (up 23.47 percent), seven copyright cases (up 16.67 percent), and five other types of cases.

In 2008, authorities apprehended 2,107 suspects involved in 1,210 cases, and prosecuted 2,697 suspects in 1,432 cases. The Supreme People's Procuratorate monitored its local offices to proceed on 6 IPR criminal cases and supervised the police investigation of 32 IPR criminal cases.

Prosecutors established links between enforcement divisions using the Internet to share information. Information-sharing links on IPR cases were established in all regions of Shanghai and Yunnan and in some of the regions in Jiangsu, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Hubei.

In 2008, police nationwide placed greater emphasis on IPR cases. In 2008, police investigated 1,455 IPR criminal cases involving 1.65 billion yuan in proceeds and apprehended 2,642 criminal suspects.

Other IPR violation-related cases involved the manufacture and distribution of goods with inferior quality and illegal business operations.

In terms of combating piracy, according to incomplete statistics, police in 2008 uncovered 5,119 cases of illegal publications involving piracy.

Police investigated 8,771 suspects, and seized 13.917 million pieces of illegal publications and seven illegal assembly lines for optical disks. Since 1996, police have seized 238 illegal optical disk assembly lines .

In 2008, police viewed the Internet as a new battlefield for combating IPR crimes and conducted in-depth investigations.

In 2008, police handled 62 aggravated criminal cases of selling counterfeit products or misappropriating trade secrets, 46 crimes involving online gaming through personal servers and seven criminal cases of distributing pirated software - all involving the Internet.

(China Daily 07/06/2009 page9)