Major acts in recent days (08-05-05)

New IPR Outline soon

A member of the State Office of Intellectual Property Strategy Formulation says that China's Outline of National IP Strategy will be issued this month. According to the Outline, the unnamed individual says China aims to be one of the world's strongest IP countries by 2020.

He says 33 ministries took part on the Outline, which covers five topics and 20 sub-topics, including S&T innovation, trade development, legislation and law enforcement.

The Outline, using the principle of "incentive creation, effective utility, reasonable protection, scientific management", is meant to help China's national economy transform itself from "rough development" to "intensive development" and take "strengthening independent innovation ability and protecting intellectual property competitive power" as the starting point.

Copyright center opens

The Beijing International Copyright Trade Center has been launched at the city's central business district. It provides one-stop services for listing copyright information, conducting copyright business, investment and trade.

China lacks large-scale, nationwide copyright trade centers and most deals are carried out through written, audio and video communications. The new center creates a platform for copyright owners, publishers and traders.

The center has also established an international collaboration with global partners including those from the United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Ukraine.

A professional copright trade website is at www.cnictc.com.

Online Chinese patent info

The State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of China has launched an online patent information with Chinese-to-English automated translation service to meet global demands for Chinese patent information.

The service allows English language searches for the bibliographic data and abstracts of the published Chinese patent documents, as well as translated English results of the full texts of inventions and utility models.

The first launch of the patent information translation service is mainly for test purposes with an aim to collect user feedback. the China Patent Information Center (CPIC), a subsidiary organization of the SIPO developed most of the technologies supporting the service.

Copyright protection

The National Copyright Administration and Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China, have launched the "Innovation and Future - Theme Educational Activity on Youth Copyright Protection" campaign.

The six-month effort will involve Youth League members throughout the country promoting copyright protection.

Tianjin IPR platform

Tianjin IPR Trade Center, National (Tianjin) Patent Technology Exhibition and Trade Center and nine universities, including Tianjin University and Nankai University, have signed a cooperation agreement to co-establish an IPR exhibition and trade platform.

The platform is aimed at promoting further development of Tianjin's Binhai New Area by encouraging the role of universities in IPR development, independent innovation and IPR applications.

Shanghai piracy crackdown

The Shanghai Public Security Bureau has pledged to intensify its crackdown on intellectual property rights violations together with other authorities, Shanghai Daily reported.

City police have uncovered 215 IPR infringement cases and seized counterfeit products valued at 486 million yuan since last year. They have also detained a total of 495 suspects for IPR violations, the bureau said.

The campaign is focusing on disrupting the production, storage and sales of pirated products, as well as every link in the illegal products chain.

According to the bureau, though the number of IPR infringement cases handed over to the public security bureau is decreasing, the city is still facing a great challenge in the defense of IPR, as intellectual pirates have become more professional and they have clear divisions.

The bureau cited a case involving a transnational intellectual property crimes ring, which had been tracked down by Chinese police working with their counterparts in the United States.

The alleged ringleader, Ma Jingyi, in the name of owning a computer network company in the city, sold pirated computer software to customers overseas through a website, police alleged.

The pirated discs were of anti-virus software of famous companies, and they were sold at 10 percent of the price of the genuine ones, according to police.

The 11 suspects in the ring, including members who produced the software in Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, were caught by police last July.

A total of 159 varieties of software and 20 computers were confiscated at the scene, involving more than 4 million yuan.

Universities mark IP Day

To mark the World IP Day on April 26, three leading universities in Beijing - Peking University, Tsinghua University and Beihang University - held a series of IPR publicity activities in their campuses. The activities included a photo exhibition, thesis writing contest and Internet knowledge competition.

Zheng Shengli, professor with the IP College of Peking University, says innovation is playing a key role in the economic development, and everyone should recognize the importance of IP.

Wang Kai with Epson (China) Co Ltd, the sponsor of the event says the company is pleased to share its IP protection experience with the Chinese government, universities and other institutions.

Court rules on software

The Qingdao Intermediate People's Court ruled that a company in Qingdao which was sued for installing and using pirated software, should compensate the three plaintiffs for 1.72 million yuan.

In December 2005, the Qingdao Copyright Administration examined the computers in Oumeite Co Ltd, an auto parts provider. The officials found that the computers were installed with pirated software of Pro/E, Windows 2000, Office 2002, Office 2003, AutoCAD 2002, AutoCAD 2004 and AutoCAD 2005. Parametric Technology Corporation, Microsoft and Autodesk Inc owned the copyrights and instituted legal proceedings against the company.

The court held that, according to the Berne Convention and the Copyright Law of China, the copyrights of the three foreign companies should be protected in China. Therefore, the court ruled that the defendant halt its infringement and compensate the plaintiffs for 1.72 yuan in damages.

New supply chain

German cash and carry giant Metro promoted its new agricultural products sourcing base at Expo China Central 2008, which was held recently in Wuhan.

The "Metro agricultural products sourcing base project", supported by the Ministry of Commerce, has created a new supply chain mode in China.

Under the guidance of Metro's scientific and standard production processes, the company has introduced a consulting company to guide local farmers on safe breeding and planting; entrust third party organizations to conduct monitor quality; and the same time, to put the products into the market through Metro's network.

Metro, headed by LV Guoman, senior vice-president, says the new model attracted great attention from agricultural producers of central regions such as Hubei and Anhui provinces.