China Releases Guideline on Protection of Property Rights
China released a guideline on better protection of property rights in an effort to shore up social confidence and promote social justice. It is the first time for China to issue a guideline of state level on protection of property rights. The country will provide equal, comprehensive and law-based protection to all kinds of property rights and encourage the participation of the public in the process, says the guideline issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council.
Law of the PRC Against Unfair Competition Revised Draft Submitted to NPC for Consideration
The latest executive meeting of the State Council adopted the "Law of the People's Republic of China Against Unfair Competition (Revised Draft)", which will increase credit penalty and punishment, and be submitted to the NPC Standing Committee for deliberation. In view of the existing legal blind spots, the draft perfects and enriches the legal definition of unfair competition, supplements the provisions of combating commercial bribery, strengthens the protection for trade secrets and anti-unfair competition in the Internet field, reinforces civil liability for compensation, and enlarge the efforts in credit punishment and administrative punishment on illegal acts.
Supreme Court Explored the Establishment of IP Appellate Court
On November 29, 2016, the Supreme People's Court held a press conference to issue the Opinions of the Supreme People's Court on Strengthening the Judicial Protection of Property Rights to Give Full Play to the Role of Trial Function. The Opinions pointed out that we should actively participate in the revision of relevant laws to promote the improvement of intellectual property infringement damage compensation system. We should timely release judicial interpretations and guiding cases, by removing barriers on the evidence of infringement, reasonably distributing the burden of proof to all parties, and other means, lawfully promote the application of punitive damages system. We should optimize the allocation of resources, and enhance the professionalism and credibility of the trial of property-related protection cases. We should collect the trial resources, organize civil criminal, civil-administrative comprehensive collegiate panels to ensure that the legal relationship is clarified and the applicable laws can be applied accurately, in property-related civil-criminal cross cases, and civil-administrative cross cases which the law is difficult to apply to. We should give full play to the demonstrative and leading role of the IP courts in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, speed up the construction of IP dispatched courts, explore the establishment of IP appellate courts and improve the IP trial system. We should promote the "three-in-one" trial of civil, administrative and criminal IP cases, and improve the overall effectiveness of IP judicial protection. We should implement the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei IP technology cases centralized jurisdiction and the rational distribution of national courts for intellectual property cases, to enhance the level of judicial protection for intellectual property.
Government to Improve Protection via Big Data Technology
The government will use big data technology to keep a close eye on online infringements and provide "stringent protection" of patents, according to a new policy released in the early December.
The State Intellectual Property Office announced the policy on October 30, echoing the central government's determination to create an innovation-friendly environment and improve intellectual property protection. "The authorities will make full use of big data technology to locate infringement clues and inform concerned rights owners, so they can seek judicial or administrative protection," He Hua, deputy commissioner of SIPO, said at a news conference in the early December. Key sectors for patent protection also include the internet, exhibitions and foreign trade, according to SIPO.
Trademark System Collaboration to Protect Olympics
The commerce and market supervision authorities of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province in November signed an agreement to connect their online trademark management systems and establish a regional cooperation mechanism, in order to protect the trademark rights related to the 2022 Winter Olympics. This will include its name, logo, slogans and franchising. According to the agreement, famous trademarks recognized in one of the three regions will be simultaneously recognized in the other two.
SIPO Will Push forward Rapid Collaborative Protection of IP
In December, the State Intellectual Property Office of the P.R.C (SIPO) issued a notice deciding that it will conduct rapid collaborative protection of intellectual property (IP) in accumulation areas of advantaged industries in qualified regions. Relying on a batch of IP protection centers of key industries, the collaborative protection will combine fast examination, fast identification of intellectual property rights (IPR) and fast protection of IPR as well as build a linkage mechanism integrating identification of IPR through examination, administrative law enforcement, IPR safeguarding and aids, mediation and judicial cohesion. Once the protection centers are established, cases of counterfeiting a patent in related industries in the local region and cases of infringement of industrial design will be concluded within 10 days. Cases of invention and utility model infringement will take up to one month. According to the actual needs of industrial development, SIPO decides to establish quick utility model and design patent evaluation report channel.
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