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Progress in safeguarding rights

By Jiang Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-04-25 10:03

Chinese enterprises have made remarkable progress in intellectual property right (IPR) protection in the past two decades, according to senior Chinese officials.

Chinese companies have not only increased their IPR protection awareness but have also increased their investment in research and development, Huang Shuhe, deputy director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, said yesterday at the China High-level Forum on Intellectual Property Rights Protection 2007.

"Enterprises' creative capability was highly boosted, spawning innovations," he said.

According to government statistics, the number of self-owned IPRs of Chinese enterprises has been rising fast in the past years.

From 2003 to 2006, the number ofpatents that 157 enterprises under the direct supervision of the central government applied for and got increased by over 35 percent annually. These enterprises were also granted a number of State rewards last year for their achievements in innovation.

"Besides, a number of enterprises have established a complete mechanism on IPR management and set up special departments to deal with IPR protection," he said.

But Chinese companies are still lagging behind some foreign players when it comes to IPR protection.

Huang said Chinese enterprises are still weak in IPRs, which reflect their core competence.