On Further Strengthening the Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property

The report of the Party’s Nineteenth Congress pointed out that we must 'promote a culture of innovation, strengthen the creation, protection, and use of intellectual property'. In 2017, the number of invention patent applications in China was 1.382 million, an increase of 14.2% year-on-year; and 420,000 invention patents were authorized. Ten thousand invention patents have reached 9.8. These data show that the level of intellectual property creation in our country has been increasing. At the same time, however, the number of intellectual property cases in China has also increased rapidly in the past five years. From 10.08 million in 2013 to 21.348 million in 2017, the average annual growth rate exceeded 20%. In 2017, it was a year-on-year increase of 40.36%, a record high.

We also learned that at present, many patentees feel that they have difficulties in obtaining evidence, have long litigation cycles, and have high costs when they protect their legitimate rights and interests through judicial channels. In particular, patent rights have a strong timeliness, despite patent rights. There is a 10-year or 20-year protection period, but a patented technology actually takes a market value for a few years. Due to the complexity and delay of litigation procedures, the prosecution, identification, trial, and conclusion of intellectual property rights often take a long time. At the same time, the counterfeit expenses paid are not directly proportional to the statutory claims, so even if the company wins the case in the end, it is often 'winning the lawsuit and losing the company'.

For example, Sichuan Golden Elephant Chemical Co., Ltd. is the world's largest melamine manufacturer, China's top 50 nitrogenous fertilizer industry, and a leading chemical company in Sichuan Province. Its production technology is at the leading international level, and it has been applied in the United States, Europe, Japan and many other countries. At present, more than half of domestic melamine production adopts the company's technology, and most of them are used for illegal infringement. Now the company is initiating judicial proceedings against enterprises and individuals in Shandong, Zhejiang and other places for infringement of its intellectual property rights. For various reasons, the progress of the case has been very difficult. From 2014 to now, it has lasted for nearly 5 years. Another example is Sichuan Huanlong New Material Co., Ltd. is the only enterprise in the country with a complete bamboo textile fiber industry chain. In 10 years, we developed the bio-extraction method to manufacture the original eco-natural tissue paper technology, and applied for more than ten patented technologies. The company's branded product 'Wanbu' has been popularized by consumers and quickly covered the national market. However, in just one year, nearly 80 so-called bamboo-colored household paper products have appeared throughout the country. These counterfeit goods are modeled on The packaging designs and product names of the “plaid” fabrics are either called Babu, Babbon, or even their namesake, and the internal products are completely non-natural, stained, adulterated, etc. Great damage to the 'bamboo' brand image and corporate interests has also seriously undermined consumer rights.

In order to better protect the intellectual property rights and legitimate rights and interests of enterprises, and better promote innovation-driven and industrial transformation and upgrading, we hereby make the following recommendations:

First, the judiciary and the administrative agencies strengthened the convergence of administrative law enforcement and criminal justice. The judiciary comprehensively used criminal and civil sanctions to take various measures to increase the synergy of intellectual property protection, increase penalties, and increase the cost of violations.

Second, vigorously improve the efficiency of the judiciary, adhere to the pre-reliant service, shorten the case-handling cycle within the scope of the law as much as possible, avoid the expansion of corporate losses, and promote innovation and development through practical actions.

The third is to focus on researching and formulating judicial measures that are more conducive to safeguarding rights and reducing the cost of rights protection, such as the distribution of burden of proof. It is clear that the infringer also has the burden of proof in order to solve the difficult problem of evidence collection that currently exists in infringed companies.

2016 GoodChinaBrand | ICP: 12011751 | China Exports