State Council Information Office held press conference to report on China’s Intellectual Property Protection

May 8, 2007

On April 14, 2007, State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China held press conference to report on China’s Intellectual Property Protection.

Mr.Yin Xintian, Spokesman of State Intellectual Property Office said on the conference that construction of patent laws and regulations are continually being strengthened. In July, 2006, the newly-issued Examining Guidelines has been formally implemented; in December, the Patent Law Amendment Draft has been submitted to State Council for discussion. In the year of 2006, the number of three kinds of patent applications have increased by a large number, among which patent applications received by the State Intellectual Property Office added up to 573,000, which was 20.3% more than the previous year, including 210,000 invention patent applications, which was 21.4% more than the previous year. Domestic applications and foreign applications composed 58.1% and 41.9% respectively of the whole invention patent applications. 268,000 patents were granted by the State Intellectual Property Office in 2006 rose by 25.2% than the previous year including 83.5% domestic application and 16.5% foreign application. The Chinese Court accepted 3196 patent cases including 70% patent infringement cases and closed 3227 cases. Administrative departments across China accepted 1270 patent cases and closed 973 cases that year.

The year 2006 saw Chinese trademark applications growing rapidly. Various kinds of trademark applications amounted to 996,000, an increase of 18.8% compared with the previous year. Among various applications, trademark registration applications went as high as 766, 000. China has ranked No. 1 for consecutive five years with largest number of trademark registration applications in the world. 313,000 trademark applications were examined by the Chinese Trademark Office in 2006. Meanwhile, the execution of law has been strengthened and a large number of important cases have been examined in accordance with laws and regulations. During the past year, 50,534 trademark cases were dealt with, 30,360,000 illegal trademark labels were captured and eliminated, and RMB 398,000,000 were fined. 252 cases with 263 suspects of committing crimes were transferred to public security.

In judicial aspect, people’s courts of various levels across China have continually intensified protection of IP rights. During the past year, the local courts in the whole nation accepted and closed 14,000 IP related civil cases of the first instance respectively, accepted 2686 and closed 2652 IP related civil cases of the second instance; 42 retrial cases were accepted and closed. In term of IP protection through criminal judicature, 2277 IP infringement criminal cases were closed, with verdicts having effects on 3508 persons, among which 3507 persons were sentenced guilty.