Plan to boost protection of IP rights

Chinese courts will strengthen intellectual property rights protection in new fields and more harshly punish violators, in order to effectively implement a newly released development plan.

"We're going to issue a guideline with a series of measures to improve the quality of IPR-related case hearings and relevant legal services to help build China into a strong IPR power," Lin Guanghai, chief judge of the Third Civil Division with the Supreme People's Court, the country's top court, said on Thursday.

His remarks were made at a news conference held by the State Council Information Office to introduce how courts nationwide will be expected to carry out IPR development plans.

On Sept 22, the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, China's Cabinet, jointly released a plan that sets goals and tasks for protecting IPR and developing relevant industries over the next 15 years.

According to the plan, judicial authorities are required to ramp up legal protection of IPR, improve the professionalism of IPR-related case handling and harshly punish violators.

"To meet the requirements, we'll focus more on IPR protection in new and major industries, such as agriculture, traditional Chinese medicine, cyberspace, big data, artificial intelligence and gene technology, and fight IPR infringement by stiffening punishments handed out to offenders," Lin said.

"We'll intensify protection for technological innovators, as well as issue judicial interpretations on the Anti-Unfair Competition Law and the Anti-Monopoly Law at an appropriate time to create a sound market environment for enterprises," he added.

In addition to working to ensure greater professionalism in IPR-related case hearings, Lin further pledged that courts would be made more technology-friendly to promote the informatization and modernization of IPR case handling.

In response to a recent case in which applications were made for registered trademarks by persons using the names of Olympic athletes, Shen Changyu, commissioner of the National Intellectual Property Administration, said the attempts had been malicious, adding that the fight against such irregularities will be intensified.

He added that the administration will carefully scrutinize patents and trademarks involving the Olympics, and provide special protection for emblems, mascots and other symbols of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.