{ Intellectual Property: China to strengthen IPR protection }

Chinese government will work to strengthen intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, China’s Vice Premier Wu Yi said on a national conference for directors of intellectual property offices recently. China has made progress in the past 30 years in IPR protection, represented by the growing number and quality of IPRs which have been widely and effectively applied to practical production, Wu said.

A better IPR protection system has safeguarded the legitimate rights of IPR owners and maintained fairness in the market, Wu said when talking about the achievements made in recent years.

The Chinese government will attach more importance to reinforcing the current regulations and frequent amendments of IPR protection, patent, trademark and copyrights, she added.

Elsewhere, EU and China is in talks to map out an IPR protection plan to enhance bilateral cooperation on the issue, said the European Union (EU) Tax and Customs Commissioner Laszlo Kovacs.

It’s true that 80 percent of the counterfeit goods seized on EU borders in 2006 came from China. And it’s true too that IPR protection is a major issue for EU businesses. But Kovacs said the Chinese government is taking proper legislative steps to stem the flow of counterfeits both at home and abroad.

“We have already witnessed a decrease (in counterfeit goods from China),” he said. “I do hope that not in the long but in the medium term there will be some progress so that the proportion from China will decrease (further).

“In 2006 and 2007 several persons were taken to court in China, who were manufacturers of counterfeit articles and landowners who operated markets where counterfeit goods were sold. So that shows China takes it (the problem) seriously.”

China has made welcome progress in setting up an IPR protection mechanism, he said. There have been visible improvements in enforcement, and the Chinese Customs legislation is now quite similar to that of the EU. Kovacs, however, said the country still needs to take some extra steps such as establishing stronger administrative cooperation between the Customs in the EU and China.

That would lead to better enforcement of laws. Also, it would be a visible sign at the EU’s willingness of the political level to support China’s efforts in this field.

The Intellectual Property: China to strengthen IPR protection by Itamar Medeiros, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.