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To deeply implement the Private Economy Promotion Law of the People's Republic of China, the CNIPA and the Supreme Court have recently launched important supporting policies, aimed at boosting the administrative and judicial protection of intellectual property rights and effectively stimulating innovation vitality of the private economy.
The Private Economy Promotion Law, the very first fundamental law of the kind in China focusing on the development of the private economy, officially came into force as of May 20, 2025, with multiple articles specifically emphasizing the protection and application of intellectual property rights related to the innovations achieved by the private enterprises.
To promote effective implementation of the Law, the CNIPA released the Implementing Intellectual Property Measures for Promoting Development of Private Economy (Draft for Comments) on July 22, 2025 to solicitude public opinions up till August 5. These Measures, focusing on enhancing the relevance and effectiveness of intellectual property work and specifying support measures for the creation, utilization, and protection of intellectual property for private enterprises, consist of twenty-one articles, mainly covering the following aspects:
(1) In terms of intellectual property creation, private economic organizations are clearly encouraged and supported to boost their independent innovation, to carry out high quality-oriented forward-looking layout of IP; the quality and efficiency of IP examination are to be continuously improved, so as to actively serve the needs of various economic organizations, private economic organizations included, for IP right acquisition.
(2) In terms of intellectual property protection, efforts will be clearly intensified to protect the IP rights in the innovations achieved by private economic organizations and businesses, infringements upon exclusive trademark rights, patent rights, and other illegal activities are investigated and dealing with under the law. The role of the national-level IP protection centers will be enhanced, rapid and collaborative protection of IP rights will be strengthened, diversified channels for resolving IP disputes of private economic organizations will be expanded, work related to foreign IP protection will be enhanced, and the capability of providing early warning, prevention, and control of overseas IP risks will be improved.
(3) In terms of utilization of the intellectual property rights, private economic organizations are clearly encouraged and supported to adopt IP commercialization and use strategies that align with their own characteristics and development needs, and to promote efficient commercialization and use of IP through methods such as self-utilization, equity participation, transfer, licensing, and pledge. Private economic organizations are encouraged and supported to explore and establish new cooperative models for commercialization and use of intellectual property, such as forming patent pools and patent open-source systems, and to make full use of open licensing to utilize their patents, and to form industry IP innovation alliances. They are encouraged and supported to comprehensively leverage the synergistic effects of various types of IP such as patents and trademarks, thereby boosting the creation of well-known trademarks and brands backed up by technical innovation.
(4) In terms of the IP-related public services, the advantages of such services provision will be clearly brought into play, so as to precisely serve private economic organizations, improve the functionality of the IP-related public service platform, provide convenient all-in-one services for private economic organizations, and increase the data openness and sharing for private economic organizations.
The Supreme Court also released the Guiding Opinions on Implementing the Private Economy Promotion Law on August 8, setting forth specific measures of judicial support for the development of the private economy in five aspects.
In the aspect of adhering to equal treatment under law and ensuring various economic organizations to fairly participate in market competition, the Guiding Opinions mention the need to strengthen judicial protection of technical innovations: increasing the protection of intellectual property rights for the achieved innovations while curbing bad-faith and fraudulent litigation involving IP rights, and optimizing the legal environment for innovation and entrepreneurship. They advocate for legal proceedings concerning IP cases in high-tech fields to heighten the level of the judicial protection for the achieved technical innovations in the key areas and core technologies. Guiding opinions for the application of punitive damages should be researched on and formulated to improve judgment rules, refine determination standards, and effectively utilizing the system value of punitive damages for deterring infringements, effectively remedying rights, and incentivizing innovation and creation. Efforts should be made to actively resolve the issue of "one case waiting for another" under the intersection of patent civil and administrative cases, as well as the inconsistency in the ruling standards. Effort will also be made to achieve the integration of the trial procedures and coordination of outcomes in patent civil and administrative cases; work with the CNIPA to establish and improve the case trial collaboration mechanism, accelerate the administrative procedures for patent confirmation related to patent civil cases, and promote substantial dispute resolution. Increased effort is needed to coordinate the trial of batch IP protection cases, harmonizing the ruling standards for batch protection cases nationwide through publication of typical cases and guiding regulations.
Sources: the CNIPA & the Supreme Court
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