Major acts in recent days (07-10-29)

New national strategy soon

Tian Lipu, commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), said on October 19 that authorities will soon unveil the long-awaited national strategy on intellectual property rights (IPR) after two years of preparations.

"If we cannot effectively protect IPR, the biggest victim will be the Chinese themselves," Tian said on the sidelines of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

He said many companies from developed countries have earned large profits in China as a result of IPR in the form of patents and trademarks.

The number of patents registered by Japan, the United States and South Korea - the top three in number of patent applications - is increasing by 10 to 30 percent a year.

Tian said IPR conflicts between China and the US will be resolved if all sides respect the law.

"The US has taken China to the WTO over IPR. I think the facts will prove our point of view," he said.

Agricultural cooperatives

China now has more than 150,000 professional agricultural cooperative organizations that registered about 26,000 trademarks and have been granted over 3,200 certificates for environmentally friendly products, green and organic food.

By the end of 2006, 38.78 million households had registered as members of the organizations, 15.6 percent of all rural families across the country, Xinhua News Agency reports.

Responsibilities of the cooperatives include mutual help among members and increasing incomes by assisting members with techniques, funds and market information, according to the statistics from Ministry of Agriculture.

9,300 ZTE patents



By the end of the third quarter, Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE Corp registered more than 9,300 patents, 90 percent of which were inventions. It applied for 871 patents on mobile phones, including 70 international patents, ranking it first among domestic handset makers. In the first half, ZTE had 4.8 percent of the domestic mobile phone market, based on statistics from CCID Consulting.

ZTE's patent pool has enabled the Shenzhen-based company to work with top-10 WCDMA phone makers and share sales channels with some of them. In the first half, ZTE sold over 1 million phones based on the third generation technology, doubling the figure in the period one year earlier.

Creative industry exhibition

An International Creative Industry Exhibition opened on October 16 in Shanghai.

One item on display that garnered wide attention was a bed costing 298,000 yuan billed as the "most expensive in the world".

The exhibition's theme of "design, technology, life" has also been characterized with the terms "new values", "new ecology", "new humanity" and "new vision".

Many well-known companies from both abroad and at home including Ikea and Sony showed their latest products.

Funding for hi-tech innovation

China has allocated 80 billion yuan over the next five years to support improvements and innovations in hi-tech enterprises, the National Development and Reform Commission said.

The fund will be used for modernization, key projects and the development of small and medium-sized hi-tech firms.

The project also aims to formulate efficient financing channels for the hi-tech industry during a China Hi-Tech Fair underway in Shenzhen.

Total turnover in the sector last year was more than 5.3 trillion yuan. The value of hi-tech exports reached $281.5 billion in 2006, four times that of 2002, accounting for almost a third of the nation's total export volume.

Rising Customs inspections

Over the past 13 years Chinese customs agents have investigated more than 8,000 shipments of goods suspected to infringe on intellectual rights. The number of cases has risen by 30 percent a year since 2001, when China became a member of the World Trade Organization.

Meng Yang, a senior official with the General Administration of Customs, said in an interview released on the administration's website on October 16 that customs took more responsibility on IPR issues by checking both imports and exports, while in many countries only imports are checked. Customs also inspected the entire range of IPR issues from patents, to trademarks and copyrights, which he notes is advanced compared to many customs offices in the world.

The administration was recently given an award by the World Customs Organization for its performance in fighting counterfeiting.

IPR cases increase 17 percent

The Supreme Court said on October 16 that courts in China heard 54,321 IPR cases in the five-year period from 2002 to 2006, an average annual increase of 17 percent, and ruled on 52,437, a 19 percent yearly rise.

At the beginning of 2006, there were 1,667 judges and more than 300 courts in China hearing IPR cases.

The courts have also used timely temporary measures to protect rights of owners. In the past five years, they heard 430 injunction applications and ruled on 425. Most of injunction applications were adjudicated within 48 hours.

Revising patent law

An international symposium on the third revision of the patent law was held in Beijing on October 10 and 11 by the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council.

A total of 18 Chinese and 13 foreign experts participated in the symposium, debating a range of subjects, including conditions for patents originating from biological genetic resources, the protection of design patents, improvement of legal procedures in patent lawsuits and the calculation of compensation and restrictions on abuses of patents.

Foreign experts praised the openness and transparency of the legislative process.

The symposium will have a constructive role on the revision of the patent law, the office said on its website.

Haikou counterfeit crackdown

The Haikou culture department undertook 1,667 inspections of piracy and pornographic publications in the first half of this year, confiscating 54,436 pirated discs, 4,430 books and 3,720 other publications. The authority also closed down 31 shops selling illegal publications.

On October 9, the authorities raided seven street vendors and confiscated over 2,000 illegal discs. Four days later, another 578 discs were confiscated.

Chicken serenade trademark



Playing "Auld Lang Syne" to chickens has helped farmers in Qionglai, Sichuan Province double the price they charge. They even registered a trademark for the "Yuba Village Music-fed Eco Chicken," the Chengdu Business News reported on October 19.

Yang Supeng, a farmer in the city, learned from newspapers that playing music to cows helps raise milk production, so he began to try it on chickens, playing songs like "Auld Lang Syne" and lullabies, which he said relaxes the mood of chickens and makes the meat tasties.

In September, the village registered the trademark, and now chickens sell at 30 to 36 yuan a kilogram, twice the price of ordinary chickens. More than 700 families in the village have started to use the technique.