- Email: [email protected]
News from PR China
World Patent Information 31 (2009) 157–159
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
World Patent Information journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/worpatin
News from PR China Editor’s note: Due to the diligent efforts of Editorial Advisory Board member, Professor Yang Zhiping, the following contributions have been provided. Michael Blackman
1. 20 Years Growth of China’s Patent Agent Team China launched her patent system in the early 1980s, when one of the most urgent problems needing to be solved was to create a professional team with strong patent knowledge and skills, especially the patent examiner team and patent agent team. In order to speed up the foundation of the professional team, a group of scientific research backbone staff were extracted from research institutes, universities, colleges and enterprises were designated by original China Patent Bureau to each patent examination sections as patent examiners after short-time training. Meanwhile, regional patent law offices emerging as required also picked up backbone from research institutes, universities, colleges and enterprises as patent agents. At that time, China’s patent agencies were classified into two categories: (1) Patent agencies which handle foreign-related patent work and were designated by the State Council. There were only three such patent agencies before 1985, the first one was Patent Commissioning Department of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), the second one was Shanghai Patent Law Office, and the third was China Patent Agency (HK) Ltd. After 1985, several more agencies were designated. These agencies were characterized by relatively large scale, strong strength and foreignrelated patent application work as their main business with a part of domestic patent work as complement. (2) Regional patent agencies subordinate to regional Science and Technology Commission, and patent agencies set up by sci-tech sections subordinate to central ministries and commissions. Their main missions were to handle patent applications from region-level enterprises or those under central ministries and commissions. And all these agencies were public-sector organizations. The first national joint conference of directors of provincial and civic patent law offices was convened in Shanghai by Shanghai Patent Law Office in 1986, and this conference was the first exchange conference of national patent agencies since the implementation of the Chinese patent system. On December 11, 1988, the All-China Patent Agents Association’s Congress was held in Hefei, Anhui province. On December 12 the same year, the All-China Patent Agents Association was formally established. The initial and developing stages of China’s patent commissioning activities were from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. During that time, the All-China Patent Agents Association carried out plenty of work, such as patent agents training and intellectual property knowledge promotion and dissemination. The association as well energetically assisted its patent agencies to expand interna-
doi:10.1016/j.wpi.2008.12.004
tional intellectual property commissioning business, promote China’s patent system, and learn foreign experience. China did not form her 5000 professional patent agent group till the mid-and late 1990s, with the improvement of China’s patent system, and the implementation of reforming and opening-up policy. Simultaneously, all Chinese provinces, metropolises and autonomous regions set up society-oriented patent agencies providing IPR intermediary services. Conditions of office automation in patent law offices were greatly improved, many of them established their unique office automation system as well as patent application document and dossier management system. In the 21st century, all intermediary organizations are required to be spin offs from their originally attached government institutions, and restructure to be completely independent, self-operating intermediary organizations in accordance with the law. At present, 90% of China’s patent agencies are completely spin offs. China has been continuously training her professional team of patent agents for over 20 years, and this team still needs more practice. In fact, patent commissioning requires its agents to be very high quality. We believe that China will surely bring out a world-class and high-qualified IPR agent team in the near future. (http://www.sipo.gov.cn/sipo2008/mtjj/2008/200811/t200811 07_424677.html) (Chengdu Branch of the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences) Zheng Ying
2. Further Improved Intellectual Property System to Facilitate the Development of China’s Economy ‘‘China is still in a relatively backward situation in the field of intellectual property; her IP system remains to be perfect. So combining with the practice of Chinese development, further improvement is necessary,” figured by ZhangQin, deputy director of the State Intellectual Property Office of PR China, in the first high-level forum on Industrial Property and Development, on October 29, 2008. Thirty years ago, there was no concept of IPR in China, not to mention IPR protection. It was on April 1, 1985 that the patent system was put into formal effect. For the past 20 years, there have been over 4,000,000 applications and in the most recent 5 years, the annual patent applications and the growth rate are upwards of 20%. It is estimated that the Applications of this year will reach about 900,000. In the last three years, Chinese domestic patent applications are a little more than foreign applications, but applications in other countries by domestic applicants is still small, which is in sharp contrast to the current situation that Chinese products are sold throughout the world.
158
News from PR China / World Patent Information 31 (2009) 157–159
President of China Industrial Economics Federation, and Chinese Academy of Engineering Xu Kuangdi said that, as an important production factor and wealth source, IPR has become a driving force for technological innovation and the centralized reflection of enterprise’ comprehensive market competition, and increasingly become a strategic resource for national and regional economic development, and the significant support for national innovation capability construction and the key point to master the initiative of development in today’s world. As a property right, the intellectual property rights need legal protection. As far as we know, the third revision of the patent law has been submitted to the National People’s Congress for deliberation. At the same time, the third revision of the Trademark Law has been launched; the amendment of the Copyright Act is in progress. Besides the laws and regulations, the IPR protection cannot be separated from the cooperation between government institutions. Policies issued by different institutions need to be coordinated with each other, so as to build a reasonable IPR system environment, and a better market mechanism to guide enterprises to find a right direction and adopt an efficient action. Because of the poor condition of China’s IPR information service and infrastructure, many enterprises frequently find that foreign or domestic competitors have developed similar products already, after they invest a lot of money to develop new products. Therefore, once the enterprise begins to produce, they may violate their competitor’s IPR. "Due to the territoriality of intellectual property and its timedependent nature, the technological innovation must be based on the legitimate industrialization of its outcomes ,so we have to do a great deal of investigation and study," according to Zhang Qin’s introduction. Next, the state department will guide enterprises and scientific research institutions to understand the legal status and distribution of intellectual property rights, so that the achievements of scientific researches and technological innovations can complete its legitimate industrialization and marketing at home or abroad. At the same time, China encourages enterprises to elevate their own innovations as technology standards as well. It will not only give a reasonable profit to the enterprise so as to encourage its further development, but also make their contributions to the establishment of professional technology. Furthermore, this will provide fair competition opportunity for the market. At present, the relationships between the intellectual property rights, industry standards and technical standards are getting closer. For example, in the field of communications, the technical standards would no longer be established based on the market conditions as with the traditional industries period. Communication networks cannot be constructed without the technical standards nowadays, and manufacturers cannot produce equipment either. However, the multinational companies are the framer in setting down the standard. "The abuse of intellectual property rights would disadvantage social progress, and undermine fair competition. Chinese enterprises still lack awareness to make use of the existing legal system to protect themselves away from the infringement of IPR abuse, and China still has a long way to practice IPR legislation and enforcement. So we should pay more attention to it." said Zhang Qin. http://www.cnpatent.com/list_news_zlxw.asp?id=910 (Sichuan University, School of Public Administration). (Chengdu Branch of the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences) Zhang Yunyue, Wang Cun
3. Domestic Flat-panel TV Industry Urgently Awaits Patent Portfolio According to the latest research report of color TV market in China, the whole competitiveness of China’s flat-panel TV industry has improved in the first three quarters of 2008. However, a few issues still exist, such as the product’s homogenization and the main competitive method still relies on ‘‘price war”. The experts pointed out that it was only enhancing core competitiveness that could change this situation; and holding core technology and possessing our own intellectual property was the key point. At present, foreign enterprises are increasing their patents portfolio in flat-panel TV in China, and the domestic enterprises should also strengthen research and development in the field. As an important component of information industry, the display industry is a highly significant bridge which runs through the information industry chain involving ‘‘component-assemblymachine”. The global output value of the information industry in 2007 amounted to 110 billion dollars, and in it the flat-panel display output value reached 70 billion dollars. According to statistics, the output value relating with display technologies was approximately 45% of the gross output value in information industry at present. With regard to the display terminal, China has manufactured, exported and consumed a large number of digital products such as MP3, PMP and DVB, and consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, notebook computer, PC and color televisions, the sales volume in China was 30–60% of the global gross. But we did not have strong competitiveness in display screen which is the key component of display industry. However, the government has already realized the importance of flat-panel display industry in recent years, and has regarded it as the key to promote information industry’s development. For example, it was proposed explicitly to develop core industries such as integrated circuit, software and new meta-apparatus in the 11th Five Year Plan Summary for National Economy and Social Development, and so did the 11th Five Year Programming for Information Industry. It is well known that holding more patents represents having more discourse rights. Zhou Shaohua, an IP expert in flat-panel industry, said in the interview with the reporter of China Intellectual Property News, that it was supposed to strengthen cross licenses of patents and collaboration in technologies between Chinese manufacturers of flat-panel TV sets. Wen Jianping, an analyst of color television industry, also indicated that the single enterprise was not able to accomplish the construction of the entire industrial chain due to its weak strength, so enterprises ought to cooperate with each other, and share patents to combat together the impact of foreign patents. Rather than just the cooperation between enterprises, the enterprise and government also must cooperate for its development. Because the flat-panel display is a technology and fund intensive industry, some countries and regions, e.g. South Korea, Japan, and Germany, have made the development plan for new flat-panel display such as OLED, and have got a good effect. ‘‘All levels of government departments in China highly support the OLEDs development. National Development and Reform Commission, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Science and Technology of China, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, and all levels of local governments have set up a series of related projects, which have a positive impact for the development of OLED industry and intellectual property.” Zhou Shaohua said. For the rapid development of flat-panel display industry in the future, he suggested that China should establish more technical platforms such as national engineering laboratory or engineering centers by making an overall planning and cooper-
News from PR China / World Patent Information 31 (2009) 157–159
ating with universities, institutions and enterprises, and input more investment in R&D of core technologies. (http://www.sipo.gov.cn/sipo2008/mtjj/2008/200810/ t20081030_423534.html) (Sichuan University, School of Public Administration). Lei Binfu 4. Patent holding raised by Top China 500 Recently, China Enterprise Confederation and China Enterprise Directors Association released the list of Top 500 Chinese Enterprises for the seventh time. And China Petrochemical enterprises is No. 1 on the list. The statistics showed that there has been a significant enhancement of Top 500 enterprises’ patent strength compared with former years. But, some people think that though the number of patents owned by Top China 500 has dramatically raised in 2008, the ownership of invention patents still needs to be increased a lot. According to the information provided by 450 companies, the average number of authorized patents owned by companies listed in Top China 500 in 2008 is 302, while 76 patents are invention patents. In 2007, 336 companies out of Top China 500 averagely owned 259 authorized patents, in which 81 patents were invention patents. This year, 431 companies provide their statistical data of
159
R&D and the average cost of R&D in these companies is 568,000,000 RMB, 1.32% of the revenue. And this data is lower than last years 1.61%. President of China Enterprise Confederation and China Enterprise Directors Association Wang Zhongyu indicated that, China large companies must aim at accumulating profound technology resources and strong sci-tech innovation capabilities, aim at applying themselves to form proprietary technologies and leading products with great influence in their fields, increasing R&D input effectively and vigorously, spearheading independent activity, as well as becoming the leader of R&D, new technique application and innovation investment. (http://www.sipo.gov.cn/sipo2008/mtjj/2008/200809/ t20080922_418970.html) (Library of Sichuan Conservatory of Music) Chen Xi Professor Yang Zhiping Chegudu Branch of the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 16 South Sec. 2 Yihuan Road, Chengdu 610041, PR China E-mail address: [email protected]
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
World Patent Information journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/worpatin
News from PR China Editor’s note: Due to the diligent efforts of Editorial Advisory Board member, Professor Yang Zhiping, the following contributions have been provided. Michael Blackman
1. 20 Years Growth of China’s Patent Agent Team China launched her patent system in the early 1980s, when one of the most urgent problems needing to be solved was to create a professional team with strong patent knowledge and skills, especially the patent examiner team and patent agent team. In order to speed up the foundation of the professional team, a group of scientific research backbone staff were extracted from research institutes, universities, colleges and enterprises were designated by original China Patent Bureau to each patent examination sections as patent examiners after short-time training. Meanwhile, regional patent law offices emerging as required also picked up backbone from research institutes, universities, colleges and enterprises as patent agents. At that time, China’s patent agencies were classified into two categories: (1) Patent agencies which handle foreign-related patent work and were designated by the State Council. There were only three such patent agencies before 1985, the first one was Patent Commissioning Department of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), the second one was Shanghai Patent Law Office, and the third was China Patent Agency (HK) Ltd. After 1985, several more agencies were designated. These agencies were characterized by relatively large scale, strong strength and foreignrelated patent application work as their main business with a part of domestic patent work as complement. (2) Regional patent agencies subordinate to regional Science and Technology Commission, and patent agencies set up by sci-tech sections subordinate to central ministries and commissions. Their main missions were to handle patent applications from region-level enterprises or those under central ministries and commissions. And all these agencies were public-sector organizations. The first national joint conference of directors of provincial and civic patent law offices was convened in Shanghai by Shanghai Patent Law Office in 1986, and this conference was the first exchange conference of national patent agencies since the implementation of the Chinese patent system. On December 11, 1988, the All-China Patent Agents Association’s Congress was held in Hefei, Anhui province. On December 12 the same year, the All-China Patent Agents Association was formally established. The initial and developing stages of China’s patent commissioning activities were from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. During that time, the All-China Patent Agents Association carried out plenty of work, such as patent agents training and intellectual property knowledge promotion and dissemination. The association as well energetically assisted its patent agencies to expand interna-
doi:10.1016/j.wpi.2008.12.004
tional intellectual property commissioning business, promote China’s patent system, and learn foreign experience. China did not form her 5000 professional patent agent group till the mid-and late 1990s, with the improvement of China’s patent system, and the implementation of reforming and opening-up policy. Simultaneously, all Chinese provinces, metropolises and autonomous regions set up society-oriented patent agencies providing IPR intermediary services. Conditions of office automation in patent law offices were greatly improved, many of them established their unique office automation system as well as patent application document and dossier management system. In the 21st century, all intermediary organizations are required to be spin offs from their originally attached government institutions, and restructure to be completely independent, self-operating intermediary organizations in accordance with the law. At present, 90% of China’s patent agencies are completely spin offs. China has been continuously training her professional team of patent agents for over 20 years, and this team still needs more practice. In fact, patent commissioning requires its agents to be very high quality. We believe that China will surely bring out a world-class and high-qualified IPR agent team in the near future. (http://www.sipo.gov.cn/sipo2008/mtjj/2008/200811/t200811 07_424677.html) (Chengdu Branch of the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences) Zheng Ying
2. Further Improved Intellectual Property System to Facilitate the Development of China’s Economy ‘‘China is still in a relatively backward situation in the field of intellectual property; her IP system remains to be perfect. So combining with the practice of Chinese development, further improvement is necessary,” figured by ZhangQin, deputy director of the State Intellectual Property Office of PR China, in the first high-level forum on Industrial Property and Development, on October 29, 2008. Thirty years ago, there was no concept of IPR in China, not to mention IPR protection. It was on April 1, 1985 that the patent system was put into formal effect. For the past 20 years, there have been over 4,000,000 applications and in the most recent 5 years, the annual patent applications and the growth rate are upwards of 20%. It is estimated that the Applications of this year will reach about 900,000. In the last three years, Chinese domestic patent applications are a little more than foreign applications, but applications in other countries by domestic applicants is still small, which is in sharp contrast to the current situation that Chinese products are sold throughout the world.
158
News from PR China / World Patent Information 31 (2009) 157–159
President of China Industrial Economics Federation, and Chinese Academy of Engineering Xu Kuangdi said that, as an important production factor and wealth source, IPR has become a driving force for technological innovation and the centralized reflection of enterprise’ comprehensive market competition, and increasingly become a strategic resource for national and regional economic development, and the significant support for national innovation capability construction and the key point to master the initiative of development in today’s world. As a property right, the intellectual property rights need legal protection. As far as we know, the third revision of the patent law has been submitted to the National People’s Congress for deliberation. At the same time, the third revision of the Trademark Law has been launched; the amendment of the Copyright Act is in progress. Besides the laws and regulations, the IPR protection cannot be separated from the cooperation between government institutions. Policies issued by different institutions need to be coordinated with each other, so as to build a reasonable IPR system environment, and a better market mechanism to guide enterprises to find a right direction and adopt an efficient action. Because of the poor condition of China’s IPR information service and infrastructure, many enterprises frequently find that foreign or domestic competitors have developed similar products already, after they invest a lot of money to develop new products. Therefore, once the enterprise begins to produce, they may violate their competitor’s IPR. "Due to the territoriality of intellectual property and its timedependent nature, the technological innovation must be based on the legitimate industrialization of its outcomes ,so we have to do a great deal of investigation and study," according to Zhang Qin’s introduction. Next, the state department will guide enterprises and scientific research institutions to understand the legal status and distribution of intellectual property rights, so that the achievements of scientific researches and technological innovations can complete its legitimate industrialization and marketing at home or abroad. At the same time, China encourages enterprises to elevate their own innovations as technology standards as well. It will not only give a reasonable profit to the enterprise so as to encourage its further development, but also make their contributions to the establishment of professional technology. Furthermore, this will provide fair competition opportunity for the market. At present, the relationships between the intellectual property rights, industry standards and technical standards are getting closer. For example, in the field of communications, the technical standards would no longer be established based on the market conditions as with the traditional industries period. Communication networks cannot be constructed without the technical standards nowadays, and manufacturers cannot produce equipment either. However, the multinational companies are the framer in setting down the standard. "The abuse of intellectual property rights would disadvantage social progress, and undermine fair competition. Chinese enterprises still lack awareness to make use of the existing legal system to protect themselves away from the infringement of IPR abuse, and China still has a long way to practice IPR legislation and enforcement. So we should pay more attention to it." said Zhang Qin. http://www.cnpatent.com/list_news_zlxw.asp?id=910 (Sichuan University, School of Public Administration). (Chengdu Branch of the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences) Zhang Yunyue, Wang Cun
3. Domestic Flat-panel TV Industry Urgently Awaits Patent Portfolio According to the latest research report of color TV market in China, the whole competitiveness of China’s flat-panel TV industry has improved in the first three quarters of 2008. However, a few issues still exist, such as the product’s homogenization and the main competitive method still relies on ‘‘price war”. The experts pointed out that it was only enhancing core competitiveness that could change this situation; and holding core technology and possessing our own intellectual property was the key point. At present, foreign enterprises are increasing their patents portfolio in flat-panel TV in China, and the domestic enterprises should also strengthen research and development in the field. As an important component of information industry, the display industry is a highly significant bridge which runs through the information industry chain involving ‘‘component-assemblymachine”. The global output value of the information industry in 2007 amounted to 110 billion dollars, and in it the flat-panel display output value reached 70 billion dollars. According to statistics, the output value relating with display technologies was approximately 45% of the gross output value in information industry at present. With regard to the display terminal, China has manufactured, exported and consumed a large number of digital products such as MP3, PMP and DVB, and consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, notebook computer, PC and color televisions, the sales volume in China was 30–60% of the global gross. But we did not have strong competitiveness in display screen which is the key component of display industry. However, the government has already realized the importance of flat-panel display industry in recent years, and has regarded it as the key to promote information industry’s development. For example, it was proposed explicitly to develop core industries such as integrated circuit, software and new meta-apparatus in the 11th Five Year Plan Summary for National Economy and Social Development, and so did the 11th Five Year Programming for Information Industry. It is well known that holding more patents represents having more discourse rights. Zhou Shaohua, an IP expert in flat-panel industry, said in the interview with the reporter of China Intellectual Property News, that it was supposed to strengthen cross licenses of patents and collaboration in technologies between Chinese manufacturers of flat-panel TV sets. Wen Jianping, an analyst of color television industry, also indicated that the single enterprise was not able to accomplish the construction of the entire industrial chain due to its weak strength, so enterprises ought to cooperate with each other, and share patents to combat together the impact of foreign patents. Rather than just the cooperation between enterprises, the enterprise and government also must cooperate for its development. Because the flat-panel display is a technology and fund intensive industry, some countries and regions, e.g. South Korea, Japan, and Germany, have made the development plan for new flat-panel display such as OLED, and have got a good effect. ‘‘All levels of government departments in China highly support the OLEDs development. National Development and Reform Commission, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Science and Technology of China, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, and all levels of local governments have set up a series of related projects, which have a positive impact for the development of OLED industry and intellectual property.” Zhou Shaohua said. For the rapid development of flat-panel display industry in the future, he suggested that China should establish more technical platforms such as national engineering laboratory or engineering centers by making an overall planning and cooper-
News from PR China / World Patent Information 31 (2009) 157–159
ating with universities, institutions and enterprises, and input more investment in R&D of core technologies. (http://www.sipo.gov.cn/sipo2008/mtjj/2008/200810/ t20081030_423534.html) (Sichuan University, School of Public Administration). Lei Binfu 4. Patent holding raised by Top China 500 Recently, China Enterprise Confederation and China Enterprise Directors Association released the list of Top 500 Chinese Enterprises for the seventh time. And China Petrochemical enterprises is No. 1 on the list. The statistics showed that there has been a significant enhancement of Top 500 enterprises’ patent strength compared with former years. But, some people think that though the number of patents owned by Top China 500 has dramatically raised in 2008, the ownership of invention patents still needs to be increased a lot. According to the information provided by 450 companies, the average number of authorized patents owned by companies listed in Top China 500 in 2008 is 302, while 76 patents are invention patents. In 2007, 336 companies out of Top China 500 averagely owned 259 authorized patents, in which 81 patents were invention patents. This year, 431 companies provide their statistical data of
159
R&D and the average cost of R&D in these companies is 568,000,000 RMB, 1.32% of the revenue. And this data is lower than last years 1.61%. President of China Enterprise Confederation and China Enterprise Directors Association Wang Zhongyu indicated that, China large companies must aim at accumulating profound technology resources and strong sci-tech innovation capabilities, aim at applying themselves to form proprietary technologies and leading products with great influence in their fields, increasing R&D input effectively and vigorously, spearheading independent activity, as well as becoming the leader of R&D, new technique application and innovation investment. (http://www.sipo.gov.cn/sipo2008/mtjj/2008/200809/ t20080922_418970.html) (Library of Sichuan Conservatory of Music) Chen Xi Professor Yang Zhiping Chegudu Branch of the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 16 South Sec. 2 Yihuan Road, Chengdu 610041, PR China E-mail address: [email protected]