Laws & Regulations

General Office of the CPC Central Committee and The State Council Issued the Action Plan for Building a High Standard Market System

中共中央办公厅、国务院发布《建设高标准市场体系行动方案》

Issue Date: 2021-01-31

Effective Date: 2021-01-31

The General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Action Plan for Building a High Standard Market System" (the "Action Plan"), which aims to thoroughly implement the decision of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, build a more mature and more established high-level socialist market economy system, and further stimulate the vitality of various market players.

The Action Plan emphasizes the comprehensive improvement of the property rights protection system. This is described in four aspects:

  1. Improve the system of laws and regulations for equal protection of property rights, improve patent and copyright laws and regulations, further refine and improve the system of state-owned property rights transactions, comprehensive clean up the laws and regulations on the differential treatment of economic property rights under different ownership systems.
  2. Improve the judicial protection system for property rights enforcement, improve the appeal, review and retrial of property rights protection cases involving enterprises, and promote the mechanism for identifying and correcting of unjust cases involving property rights in accordance to the law.
  3. Strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights, promote the implementation of the trial of infringement of trade secrets civil cases on several issues of applicable law; develop and introduce the interpretation of several issues of the law applicable to punitive damages for intellectual property infringement, strictly implement the punitive damages system for malicious infringement, long-term continuous infringement, trade mark infringement and other acts; explore the establishment of a rapid response mechanism for intellectual property infringement; formulate and revise departmental regulations such as trade mark agency management measures, geographical indication product protection regulations, and official mark protection measures. The government should also study intellectual property rules in cross-border e-commerce, prepare and publish guidelines for the protection of intellectual property rights of enterprises and national guidelines for the protection of intellectual property rights. They should also optimize the application and examination procedures for patents and trade marks, improve examination efficiencies, and establish and improve management systems for the evaluation of intangible assets such as patents and trade marks.
  4. Improve the rural collective property rights system, promote the pilot reform of the rural collective property rights system, improve the system of identifying and protecting rural collective property rights, and establish a system for the catalogue, registration, storage, use and disposal of collective assets and a financial management and supervision system.

In addition, the program also emphasizes the development of knowledge, technology and data elements market, including innovating mechanisms to promote the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, improve the property rights system for scientific and technological achievements, accelerate the cultivation and development of the data elements market, and establishing trading institutions for intellectual property and property rights of scientific and technological achievements.

Source: http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2021-01/31/content_5583936.htm

CNIPA Issues Notice on the Further Strict Regulation of Patent Applications

国知局发布《关于进一步严格规范专利申请行为的通知》

Issue Date: 2021-01-28

Effective Date: 2021-01-28

Recently, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (“CNIPA”) issued the Notice on the Further Strict Regulation of Patent Application (the "Notice"), which aims to promote high-quality development of patent application requirements, further regulate patent application behavior, improve the quality of patent applications, and eliminate abnormal behavior that is not aimed at protecting innovation.

The Notice specifies that funding for patent application stages at all levels shall be completely abolished by the end of June 2021. Local governments shall not give financial support to patent application behavior in any form such as grants, incentives and subsidies. The scope of existing local funding shall be limited to granted invention patents (including invention patents granted overseas through PCT and other means), and the funding shall be in the form of post-grant subsidies. The total amount of various types of subsidies received by the funding recipients shall not be higher than 50% of the official fees paid by them for obtaining patent rights, and annual patent fees and intermediary service fees shall not be subsidized. For those who falsify information to obtain patent funding, the allocated funds shall be withdrawn within a time limit. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, all local governments shall gradually reduce various types of financial support for patent licenses and abolish them by 2025. They should focus on optimizing the use and management of financial funds related to patent funding, strengthening the use of patent protection, and focus on increasing support for subsequent transformation and application, administrative protection and public services.

In addition, the Notice also emphasizes strengthening credit supervision for patent applications, regulating and standardising patent transactions and cross-departmental information reporting, and establishing an intellectual property credit supervision system.

Source: https://www.cnipa.gov.cn/art/2021/1/28/art_75_156439.html

“Blue-Sky” Action Achievements were Issued

“蓝天”行动成果公布

Date: 2021-01-27

According to the CNIPA, a total of 2,950 patent and trade mark agencies have been interviewed in the two years since the implementation of the Blue-Sky Action. Within this number, a total of 1,095 agencies were ordered to be rectified, 330 cases have been investigated, and 182 administrative penalties were imposed.

The implementation of the Blue-Sky Action has significantly cracked down on all types of patent and trade mark agency violations, and the industry development environment has also been significantly improved.

Source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/GdQj3istYbY1kPpUoVJC7g

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