Quick look at headlines:

·         Xi’an Hi-tech Industries Development Zone Offered Better IPR Protection

·         Supreme People’s Court issued Guideline to Strengthen Juridical Protection for IP Rights

·         Beijing IP Court Accepts over 700 Cases Since Establishment

·         China Goes Online to Host National IP Week

If you ask what the grandest festival to the global IPers is, the answer is definitely the National IP Week

To celebrate World Intellectual Property Day, which falls on April 26, a weeklong IP campaign is being held across China, with its opening ceremony performed online.

The National IP Publicity Week 2020 is aimed at increasing awareness among the public and creating a friendly climate for China to build itself into an IP powerhouse, organizers said.

The event revolves around the theme of "IP and a healthy China", which was inspired by that of this year's World Intellectual Property Day－Innovate for a Green Future－and also based on the needs for the novel coronavirus prevention and control.

Amid the health crisis, the online opening ceremony would reduce gatherings and attract a wider audience.

You can check the official website of CNIPA for the full schedule of this Publicity Week.

Link: http://english.cnipa.gov.cn/ 

Now let’s take a look at the stimulating measures taken for helping local firms in combat with the COVID-19 aftermath.  

Faced with the economic and social challenges brought by the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Xi’an Hi-tech Industries Development Zone has issued 15 measures to optimize the business environment and achieve high-quality development this year.

Those measures not only focus on the construction of projects related to land use, supervision and administrative approval, but also set goals in terms of protecting intellectual property rights and improving the business environment.

Over the past few years, the zone has aimed to protect intellectual property rights and promoted related industries.

The zone will establish an intellectual property service system and introduce incentive policies for intellectual property institutions. 

Apart from company level stimulus, the Chinese Judiciary issued guidelines for IPR protection as well.

According to a guideline released by the Supreme People's Court (SPC), China will award heavier compensations for victims of severe acts of infringing intellectual property rights and consider recording dishonest litigations, such as malicious prosecutions, in the national credit information system, to curb IP-related crimes. The newly released guideline has turned the focus to challenges and difficulties of IP cases, sparing no efforts to lower the cost and duration of lawsuits, while increasing compensation and relieving the burden of adducing evidence.

The 26-item guideline was made public on 21 of April, you can check it on the official website of Supreme People’s Court.  

Then let’s move on to the fruitful result gained by the local court.

According to the Beijing Intellectual Property court, it accepted 702 cases involving medical patents and concluded 447 cases from its establishment in 2014 to February this year.

China is an important pharmaceutical market in the world, where global pharmaceutical enterprises compete with each other in allocating resources and exploiting the market. Medical inventors should be encouraged to obtain patent protection and earnings of research and development by disclosing their technical solutions, while they should also be prevented from abusing the patent system to form market monopolies and raise drug prices.