22 June 2021
The China National Intellectual Property Administration has recently approved the establishment of the Intellectual Property Protection Centres in Liaoning, Jilin and Changchun. The number of these centres under construction and in operation across the country has reached 46. In addition to the existing Shenyang and Heilongjiang Centres, there will be a total of five in northeast China.
“With rapid development of science and technology worldwide, the traditional old industries in northeast China such as iron and steel as well as chemical and shipbuilding are facing many challenges and development dilemma. For this reason, the Chinese government has carried out many innovations including industrial structure adjustment, transformation and upgrading to these traditional industries, and focused on new development of high-tech industries by virtue of regional advantages and policy guidance. With the innovation-driven development of northeast China, the demand for IP protection is increasing. To meet such demand, the government sets up the centres in northeast China to serve the innovative entities better,” says Zunxia Li, a partner at IP March in Beijing. “At present, the five centers shall be sufficient but with continuous development of high-tech industries in northeast China, it is not ruled out that more will be set up in the future.”
The five centres in Shenyang, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Jilin and Changchun will provide rapid and collaborative services for IP protection in the industries of high-end equipment manufacturing, biological equipment, new materials and new generation information technology as well as biomedical and modern agriculture. They will give full rein to their professional advantages to provide whole-chain IP protection for local advantageous industries.
“For a long time, there have been some problems in the traditional IP protection in northeast China (e.g. long period of patent examination, non-uniform administrative enforcement and lack of diversified dispute resolution mechanism). They all lead to the failure of providing effective IP protection for innovative industries. The centres integrate rapid patent examination, rapid right confirmation, and rapid right protection, and provide rapid collaborative protection of IP with the linkage of examination and right confirmation, administrative law enforcement, right protection assistance, arbitration and mediation, and judicial convergence, for example, the examination period of invention patent can be reduced from an average of 22 months to three to six months, the utility model patent reduced from an average of six months to one month, and the design patent reduced from an average of five months to less than 10 working days. At the same time, through the coordinated and unified enforcement, the examination period of counterfeiting patent cases and patent infringement cases is also greatly shortened, for example, the infringement cases of invention and utility model can be solved from the original three months to one month, which effectively solves the problems of high cost, long period and difficult to adduce proof in the IP protection. Since the centres aim to provide rapid integrated services for collaborative protection of IP for local innovative entities, the establishment of these centres shall not weaken the demand and role of lawyers,” Li says. “On the contrary, due to active intervention and unified enforcement of the centres, it makes the work of lawyers more convenient and provides better support. The good cooperation between the lawyers and the centres can provide better services for local innovative industries.”
Based on the new development stage of the revitalization of the old industrial bases in northeast China, efforts will also be made to strengthen intra- and cross-departmental collaboration, and provide comprehensive IP protection services for innovative entities. They will serve the high quality economic development of northeast China under the full implementation of the principles that innovation is the primary driving force for development, and that protecting IP is protecting innovation.
“Northeast China, where many (state-owned) iron and steel, shipbuilding and other heavy industry enterprises were located, has always been one of the old industry areas that the government attaches great importance to. However, due to its remote geographical location, outdated enterprise management and backward technology, the industrial development in northeast China, especially the innovation and development of high-tech industry, has been hindered, far behind development of southeast China. Under long term efforts of industry structural adjustment, transformation and upgrading, the industries have been revitalized and newly developed, and meanwhile, more high-tech innovative industries are attracted to settle in northeast China through policy guidance, which has greatly improved the industrial environment in northeast China,” Li says. “With the development of these high-tech innovation industries, the demand for IP protection in northeast China is increasing day by day, which makes northeast China a key area for the central government to focus more on IP protection and development.”
Johnny Chan
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