The fourth plenary session of the first session of the thirteenth National People's Congress was held in the morning of March 13, 2018. Yong Wang, a State Councilor, illustrated the Reform Plan of institutional restructuring of the State Council, according to which the State Intellectual Property Office will be restructured.
The details as follow:
The restructuring of the State Intellectual Property Office. Intensifying the creation, protection and application of intellectual property rights is an important approach to accelerate establishment of an innovation-oriented country. To solve the problem of separate management and repeated law enforcement on patent and trademark, as well as to improve the intellectual property management system, the Reform Plan proposes to restructure the State Intellectual Property Office by integrating the duties of the State Intellectual Property Office, the duties of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce in the area of trademark management and the duties of the State Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine in the area of geographical indication of origin, which will be supervised by the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration. The major duties of the restructured State Intellectual Property Office include, protection of intellectual property rights, accelerating establishment of a protection system for intellectual property rights, registration/grant and administrative adjudication of trademarks, patents and geographical indications of origin and supervision of law enforcement over trademarks and patents. The market supervision comprehensive enforcement team takes the duties of trademark and patent law enforcement.
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