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17 August 2016
A report by the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), ranked the Zhongshan intellectual property rights quick response centre as number one in the Pearl River delta in its 2015 assessment of China’s patent enforcement agencies.
Besides providing a series of IP services, the centre has also raised awareness of IPR among local companies.
Before the establishment of the centre in 2011, it was common for companies to suffer losses even if they won a lawsuit, because the filing process was costly and time consuming. But now, all that are required are patent certificates and evidence to prove infringement. The centre’s enforcement officers will then request the infringer to remove the counterfeit at once.
If the centre holds that patent infringement has occurred (it only handles design patent infringement for lamps), it will request the infringer to stop and it will then mediate between the parties as to the damages. “If the parties cannot reach agreement on the damages, the centre may transfer the case to the local court with all the evidence, and the plaintiff may claim damages in the court proceeding,” says Shuhua Zhang, a partner at Wan Hui Da in Beijing. “Alternatively, the patentee can also withdraw the petition from the centre and go to court to seek injunction and damages, and request the court to collect evidence of infringement from the centre.”
The director of the centre, Yumei Hou, told China Daily that one of its major advantages is convenience, and that it offers quick mechanisms for rights protection and granting of patents. It offers one-stop services to local companies by combining administrative enforcement, the IP circuit court, and the mediation system. Infringement can be solved within a month.
The centre has also initiated electronic patent authorization, allowing a design patent to be granted in a week, which enables a new product to reach the market faster.
It has coordinated with SIPO to establish a channel for the quick granting of design patents for lamps, Zhang says. “This channel does not necessarily generate insignificant patents. Instead, it may enhance the quality of the design patents. When the applicant files a design patent application, the centre will help conduct a ‘redundant design’ search using the China design patent smart search system, review the application documents, and advise the applicant as to the quality of the design. Such measures reduce the amount of ‘trash design’,” says Zhang.
The centre has also introduced a public design patent search system that shows images of designs with descriptions. Companies can then search for patents prior to product development.
In 2015, 423 IP lawsuits were filed in Zhongshan, doubling the number of the previous year and accounting for 25% of such cases in Guangdong province.
