Major acts in recent days (08-02-18)

Further action pledged

China will take further action to boost intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, Vice Premier Wu Yi said in Beijing recently. In the past 30 years, China has made historical progress in terms of IPR protection. New technology under IPR protection has been applied to production effectively, she said at a national conference for directors of intellectual property offices.

"The progress in IPR protection has safeguarded the legitimate rights of IPR owners and guaranteed fair economic order," Wu said. "We will use the IPR protection to enhance Chinese people's innovation capacity."

She said the government will put more emphasis on completing the legal basis for IPR protection and timely amending laws on patent, trademark and copyrights.

Planes off to Bolivia



Two Xinzhou-60 passenger planes will soon fly to Bolivia and operate under a local air carrier, according to the China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corporation. The aircraft will be the first batch of made-in-China planes in commercial flight in South America, said company vice-president Huang Bin.

The turboprop, known outside China as the MA60, can accommodate 52 to 60 passengers with a maximum range of 1,600 km. China exported seven Xinzhou-60s last year. So far 12 such planes have been delivered to Zimbabwe, Laos, Zambia, Congo and Angola.

The plane is manufactured by Xi'an Aircraft Industry (Group) Co Ltd.

Monitoring platform

China's National Copyright Administration (NCA) has launched first-phase construction of a monitoring platform for the violations of Internet IPR.

The monitoring platform, which will be completed in May, will have an automatic search system for music and film products that are being broadcast online without permission, said Yan Xiaohong, NCA vice-director.

The first phase of the project will cost eight million yuan. "This will help us to locate and deal with IPR violation cases more accurately and swiftly. We have to resort to new technology to tackle the problems brought about by technological development," Yan said.

He said the platform works like Internet search engines. With authorized film, TV and music products uploaded to its database, it would be able to identify unauthorized use of those products by surfing online. Once it has detected such products, it will send a notice to the relevant websites and ask them to delete them.

Sino-EU action plan

The EU Commissioner responsible for taxation and customs, Laszio Kovacs, reiterated that a concrete Action Plan on Intellectual Property Rights will be worked out between China and the European Union.

"The Action Plan will include specific commitments for both parties to strengthen cooperation on protecting IPR, with details still under discussion," Kovacs said during a trip to China.

Kovacs said that both sides agreed on the strategic partnership between China and the EU in the third meeting and began to discuss details of the Action Plan. IPR protection is a major issue for EU businesses, for which counterfeit and pirated products pose a serious challenge.

Kovacs praised the progress made by the Chinese government in setting up an IPR regime, with visible improvements in enforcement. But he said that the problem of IPR infringements in China far exceeded the level of customs intervention and further action still needs to be taken.

Robot polar research

China's scientists made strides on the "Low Altitude Flying Robot" and "Mobile Robot on Snowy and Icy Surface" experiments, with domestic intellectual property rights, during the recent 24th scientific exploration trip to Antarctica.

The application of intelligent robot technology not only reduced risks and costs but also improved efficiency and coverage of polar scientific research. The low-altitude robots were put into practice, laying a foundation for in-depth research and application of serialized and multi-functional polar exploration robots in China.

The research team is constituted of the Polar Research Institute of China, Shenyang Institute of Automation and the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

IPR conference

The First Working Conference of China IPR Judgments & Decisions, sponsored by the Supreme People's Court (SPC), was held in Suzhou Industrial Park, a national IPR pilot park.

Altogether 74 officers from 33 higher people's courts and 24 intermediate and grassroots people's courts owning IPR cases jurisdiction attended the conference.

In five years from 2002 to 2006, local courts across the country accepted 54,321 civil IPR cases and concluded 52,437 cases, with respective increases of 145.92 percent and 141.99 percent over those of the previous five years from 1997 to 2001 and the annual increase rates are 17.06 percent and 19.29 percent. They accepted 13,170 second-trial civil IPR cases and concluded 12,700 cases, with respective annual increases of 8.93 percent and 9.55 percent.

As the most direct, effective and steady protection method, judicial protection possesses the basic and dominant position in IPR innovation system and is an important part of national IPR strategy as well as an important guarantee for realizing the strategy.

Karaoke royalties

Nearly half of Chinese provinces had taken initiatives to collect karaoke copyright royalties by the end of 2007 in an effort to protect audio and video IPRs.

China Audio and Video Association and China Copyright Society of Works of Music said 15 provinces and municipalities, including Beijing, Guangdong and Jiangsu, had so far agreed to collect copyright royalties, and the practice should be spread nationwide.

Karaoke operators are required to pay a daily charge of 12 yuan for each karaoke room - less in underdeveloped regions - for the use of musical and video products, as stated in a National Copyright Administration notice of November 2006.

Yet some karaoke operators avoid or delay paying fees and continue to use the material illegally.

Yunnan province recently found a case of illegally copying of a 20,000-song compilation and two suspects were taken into custody. Other Chinese provinces have plans to implement IPR rules for karaoke, but no timetable has been provided.

Copyright agreements



Shanghai Interactive Television Co, one of China's largest digital-TV content providers, has reached agreements with copyright holders of more than 1,000 movies, Shanghai Daily reports. The aim is to distribute their movies on air to draw audiences to the networks and away from pirated DVD and Internet downloads.

Among the copyright holders are major United States studios such as Time Warner and Disney, to which SiTV has paid tens of millions of yuan in loyalty fees to gain the airing rights on a multi-year basis, SiTV officials were quoted by Shanghai Daily as saying.

"It's a win-win situation for both parties," said Gao Yue, president of SiTV, which covers 10 million of China's 25 million digital TV users. "Our audience can get access to the best movies, while the studios get a chance to promote their releases."

Many of the movies will be in high-definition format, including latest releases. They started to be aired on SiTV's paid movie & TV series channel from February 6, and are also be available for on-demand playing.

IP Court cases

The IP Court of China Supreme Court accepted 128 cases last year. Together with the 34 cases still active from 2006, the IP court judged 162 cases, 25 more than the previous year. By December 25, 107 cases had been settled, some 66 percent of the total.

The cases involved technologies, individual conflicts, and governmental and industrial policies.