During the 2010 Shanghai Expo, the State Intellectual Property Office led the National Copyright Administration of the PRC and other six units to form a special inspection team to research IPR protection during the Expo. The squad arrived in Shanghai to investigate IPR protection at the Expo Campus, and subsequently held a forum.

Wu Xiaoming, team leader of the inspection team, deputy director of protection coordination department of the State Intellectual Property Office, confirmed the efforts made by Shanghai in IPR protection during the Expo, after hearing the situation of IPR protection at the Expo.

 

In the early stages of the Expo, certain people involved worried about IP issues during the enormous event; they thought that IPR protection at the Shanghai Expo was more complex than that of the Beijing Olympics. The reasons were: IPR protection for the Beijing Olympics mainly involved the logo protection of the organizer, while the Shanghai Expo needed to protect the intellectual results of the exhibitors, and third-party IP as well, which involved various protecting bodies such as countries, international organizations, cities and enterprises; the duration of the Beijing Olympics lasted only half a month, so “special” measure were adopted, while the time span of the Shanghai Expo reached six months, which made the long-term “unusual” job of rights protection impossible. 

In this research, Wu Xiaoming highly praised the IPR protection of Shanghai: Through strengthening the efforts to crack down on IP infringement, strengthening market supervision, strengthening promotion, the IPR protection environment of the Shanghai Expo proved to be substantial. IPR protection at the Shanghai Expo achieved huge success, which was embodied in the macro-deployment. It was strengthened with effective measures; solid and comprehensive law enforcement with remarkable results; a smooth and convenient IPR protection channel for the exhibitors; and a good public opinion atmosphere on the issue of IPR protection.

 

After the successful application of the Shanghai Expo, China made a promise to the world, namely the IPR Protection Outline of Expo 2010 Shanghai, which put forward ten measures concerning IPR protection of the Shanghai Expo. Lv Guoqiang has stated that the job they did made good on the promise.

How was the promise made good on, and what achievements and shortcomings were there? The reporter had a dialogue with Lv Guoqiang to interpret the transcript of the Shanghai Expo.

 

China IP: It is understood that a special IP service center was set up during the Expo, what job was the center responsible for? Are there any other IP related service organizations besides it?

Lv Guoqiang: Exhibitors IP Service Center of the Shanghai Expo officially began to run on April 15, 2010. The center was led by the Bureau of Shanghai World Expo, IP volunteers participated from the universities in Shanghai and coordinated by each member unit of the joint conference. The center was in charge of uniformly giving advice for IP related issues upon the requests of the exhibitors, providing guidance of IP related issues to the exhibitors, coordinating and solving the IP disputes among the exhibitors.

In addition, in order to uniformly receive the complaints and reports of IP infringement from various exhibitors, Shanghai IP Joint Conference drew support from the national IP rights protection hotline 12330 to set the complaint and report service hotline for the exhibitors. 

 

China IP: In the early stage of the Expo, some specialists were worried about the IP issues during the Expo. They considered the fact that IPR protection at the Shanghai Expo was more complex than during the Beijing Olympics; the outstanding problems were more as well. So how to effectively solve these problems?

 

Lv Guoqiang: We did a lot of promotions in the earlier stage of the Expo. Shanghai IP Joint Conference and related member units carried out promotional activities through various approaches and manners such as compiling and printing brochures, making promotional products, launching advertisements, promoting through newspapers, TVs, literary tours, lectures, seminars, and setting inquiry points on the streets. The joint conference opened a featured website called “World Expo IPR Protection” on EASTdAY.COM, which also provided links of State Intellectual Property Office’s website and Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration’s website. The featured website gained a high click ratio. Some leader s and IP specialists communicated with the netizens about the IP issues in the Expo on line as well. The featured website also launched a prize quiz with thousands of people participating, which received good promotional effect.

In order to further strengthen the IPR protection, the Shanghai IP Joint Conference established the coordination mechanism of the IPR protection during the Expo to quickly and effectively investigate the IPR infringement of various exhibitors. I considered the mechanism insured the effective resolution of the outstanding problems and in-time resolution of emergencies.   

 

China IP: After the investigation of the inspection team, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration surely summarized the job done during the Expo. What do you think was inadequate?

 

Lv Guoqiang: The IPR protection of the Shanghai Expo achieved some success through the hard work done by law enforcement, but some problems still exited, which were mainly reflected on the aspects below: Firstly, selling fake products inside the Expo Campus was not eliminated. After the Expo Campus opened, some small business operators sold fake HAI BAO and other infringing products not only around the campus but also inside it. They sold the fake products on the streets, some even set up temporary stalls around the pavilions, which strongly affected the normal operation of the Expo; Secondly, the infringement outside the campus was serious. On Nanjing Road, at the bound and other places, selling fake products with the Expo logo was rampant. Some people selling fake goods even used the homes of the residents as their warehouse. For the problems, we adopted some measures to face the challenges provided by the Expo and insured the IPR protection effectively carried out. 

 

China IP: Many people thought the IPR protection of the Shanghai Expo was more complex than the one during the Beijing Olympics because more countries were involved in and the duration was longer. Did these problems make the IP issues of the Expo more difficult and complex?