Intellectual property week gets underway

China's "strong and constructive engagement" in intellectual property has followed a consistent pattern throughout the past 30 years, said a senior official of the World Intellectual Property Organization.

WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry made his remarks in a video speech at the opening ceremony of this year's weeklong IP promotion campaign in Beijing on April 20.

"In the past 30 years, China's journey in relation to intellectual property has been quite extraordinary," Gurry said.

The nation now ranks as the largest intellectual property producer in the world, he added.

The country topped the world for four consecutive years in terms of invention patent filings, with 928,000 applications filed with the State Intellectual Property Office in 2014, an increase of 12.5 percent from a year ago.

China also retains its top ranking in terms of effective trademark inventory, which totals 8.39 million.

In other IP dimensions, the country has also enhanced its leading position. For instance, registered software copyrights increased 33.1 percent to 219,000 and other copyrights reported a 17.4 percent rise to 992,000 last year.

The creative output of China is "something extraordinarily rich and extraordinarily diverse", Gurry said.

World Intellectual Property Day, which was proposed by Chinese and Algerian delegations some 15 years ago, falls during China's IP promotion campaign this week and the director-general said that WIPO selected "Get up, stand up. For music" as this year's global theme.

The Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances that was concluded in Beijing in 2012 is pertinent to the theme of this year, he said.

The Beijing Treaty provided the fundamental foundation in the digital environment for the protection of musical works. "It added the dimension of audiovisual works," Gurry said.

"Building an intellectual property powerhouse and supporting innovation-driven development" is the theme for China's weeklong campaign, according to SIPO commissioner Shen Changyu.

"IP is a crucial resource for development and a core element in competitiveness," Shen said at the opening ceremony.

The central government values IP work and made it clear in a recent policy that the IP system is a fundamental guarantee for motivating innovation, he said.

The Action Plan for Further Implementing National IP Strategy, which was jointly released by 28 ministers and organizations including SIPO at the end of last year, set a new goal to build a strong IP country.

With increasing awareness and wider public participation, China is building an IP-friendly environment, Shen added.

Liao Tao, deputy-commissioner of SIPO, told a press conference that during the IP promotion week, a series of events would be held across the country.

They will include the releases of China's IP judicial protection report by the Supreme Court, the analysis of electric information patent development trends by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, IP protection cases at customs by the General Administration of Customs and a report on the country's agriculture IP creation index by the Ministry of Agriculture.

At the same time, a variety of symposiums, training and surveys will also take place to draw more attention to IP work.

wangxin@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 04/22/2015 page16)