In booming China, almost every day brings a new milestone. However, on June 2, the day the Beijing Intermediate Court ruled in favour of Pfizer's Viagra patent rights, may be remembered as decisively demonstrating the maturity of intellectual property rights in China.

"This decision sends a powerful message," says Wang Liming, dean of Renmin University Law School. "It represents a determination to protect patents, copyrights and trademarks. In a very high profile, decisive way, it has shown how far the Chinese IP protection framework has evolved."

Wang should know. He oversees Renmin University Law School's Intellectual Property Centre, a leading institute at the forefront of China's progress to an increasingly mature IP protection environment. In the Pfizer case, the dean, representing the centre alongside his colleague Professor Liu Chuntian, provided crucial expert testimony to the court.

"The IP Centre is at the cutting edge of IP law in China. At present, the centre is the most comprehensive IP learning institution in the country, and is fully endorsed by the World Intellectual Property Organization," says Wang. "The centre plays a major role in the creation of IPR legislation and the translation of international statutes and codes into Chinese. This steady supply of updated legislation helps provide China with a legal system that is consistent with global standards."

This is not the first time the IP Centre has made headlines, and certainly not the first time it has played a role in guiding the development of China's IP framework.

Since its founding in 1986, the centre has been a key player in defining intellectual property rights law in a way that both brings China up to consistency with international standards and promotes innovation, while at the same time benefiting China and its industrial interests.

One example of the IP Centre's influence is copyright legislative reform. When China first drafted its copyright legislation for software, many experts strongly argued for the right to make temporary copies. The IP Centre's rationale that there was no consistent line of legal theory to support this won the day however. This has kept China's legal development closely aligned with international copyright laws.

The centre has also advised on issues of international magnitude, for example the adoption of rules from the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property into Chinese law, a treaty which links intellectual property systems, including patents, between participating states. The centre has been closely linked to other international treaties including China's signing of the WTO administered Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), which sets down minimum standards for most forms of intellectual property regulation within all member countries.

As China's IP environment develops and grows, the centre has continued to lead the way. In the area of mobile telecommunications, the IP Centre has taken an active role in shaping how IP affects the market. The future use of industry standards such as Audio Video Coding Standard (AVS) and Wireless Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI) in China will owe much to the efforts of the centre.

In each of these cases, an effort to bring more clarity and respect for China's intellectual property rights have been the driving force in the IP Centre's efforts. "Our No 1 goal is to bring Chinese IP law up to international standards," says Liu, dean of the IP Centre. "Only with world class intellectual property protection, and real respect for those laws, can China maintain its growth in an increasingly innovative marketplace."

According to Wang, the pace at which IPR standards are being adopted in China is staggering. "Developing the same legal processes took almost 100 years in the West," says Wang. "It takes time for these ideas to become social and business norms. We still have a way to go, but we are very proud of our accomplishments in the past 20 years."  Both Wang and Liu agree  - the next step for China is implementation and enforcement.

"These same legal concepts took almost a century to develop in the West. Frankly, China's strides towards a global level of intellectual property protection have been remarkable," says Wang.

"Now we are seeing a grass roots interest in intellectual property among Chinese companies. While recognition by consumers about what intellectual property means for them is still very basic, I truly think that very soon this awareness is going to spread throughout society."

This article represents the opinion of the author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of this publication.