BIZCHINA / Weekly Roundup
IPR protection strengthened
(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2006-03-13 10:22
More people are going to prison for violating intellectual property
rights (IPR), Supreme People's Court spokesman Sun Huapu said on March 10.
Nearly 3,000 violators were put in prison last year because of
IPR-related crimes, Sun told a press conference. The figure was up 24
percent on 2004.
More severe punishments also began to be meted out for IPR crimes
previously considered to be not so serious, according to the judicial
interpretation, which was jointly announced by the Supreme People's Court
and the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
At the press conference, the opening of a website on IPR protection was
announced. Court verdicts made last year were available at
http://ipr.chinacourt.org/. More and more of the latest IPR judgments
will be available in the near future.
Foreign IPR owners are encouraged to sue suspected violators in Chinese
courts to protect their legal interests. "Courts throughout China will
continue to give equal protection to domestic and foreign IPR owners,"
said spokesman Sun.
The following are some briefs printed in China Daily's IPR Special (March
13-19).
Trademark applications
China recorded 664,000 trademark registration applications in 2005, up
12.9 per cent year-on-year, according to the Trademark Office of China's
State Administration of Industry and Commerce. The increase singled China
out as the global leader in trademark registration applications for the
fourth consecutive year.
The Trademark Office had received approximately 4.22 billion applications
for trademark registration by late-2005. Roughly 2.5 billion of those
applications have been granted.
In a campaign last year against trademark infringement, China's
Administration of Industry and Commerce identified 87,000 trademark
violations.
IPR exhibition
An exhibition showcasing the Chinese Government's efforts to combat
intellectual property rights (IPR) violations will be held in Beijing
between April 16 and 23.
Co-organized by the National Office of Rectification and Standardization
of Market Economic Order, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry
of Commerce and China Customs, the exhibition is expected to highlight
China's progress in IPR protection and raise public awareness.
The one-week show covers the Chinese Government's achievements in
protecting trademarks, patents, and copyrights. It will also showcase
legislative improvements in China and will promote IPR owned by large
Chinese enterprises such as Sinopec and Haier.
The exhibition is part of a lead-up to IPR Day on April 26.
Pearson case
The Trademark Office of China's State Administration of Industry and
Commerce rejected an appeal from the publishing and education
conglomerate Pearson Public Ltd Co on February 28. The authorities
approved a trademark registration application by a Hong Kong-based
English school in Chongqing that Pearson says infringed on its Longman
brand.
The Mandarin trademark "langwen" is similar to Pearson Education Co's
well-known Longwen English dictionaries ("Longman" in Chinese).
A school official said the application was filed six years ago in
Chongqing, in Southwest China's Sichuan Province.
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