The protection of intellectual property rights remains a shortcoming for the development of startups, according to a report released by Shanghai Technology Innovation Center.
China has actively promoted entrepreneurship and innovation, an important part of a new growth strategy as the country enters a "new normal" stage of slower development. More and more young people, including college graduates, have joined "hackerspaces" and started their own businesses.
Hackerspaces refer to workplaces or platforms created for, and by, young entrepreneurs and innovators to start their own business. These enterprises usually involve the Internet and information technology-related industries.
With the entrepreneurship wave, corresponding intellectual property right protection work lags behind, especially in the fields of online game development, creative designs and mobile Internet software development, where products often update very frequently, the report noted.
The report looked at the current situation and problems during the development of startups from hackerspaces in the Yangtze River Delta.
As an example the report looked at a software enterprise that protected their innovative results with mainly software copyrights and patents, which require long application periods and complicated processes. However, software enterprises usually develop with rapid changeover, which the current intellectual property right system struggles to keep up with, industry sources said.
A mobile Internet technology startup owner said their software product updates every one to two weeks, and there will be an upgraded version each month. But the copyright can protect only one version of software each time. "The long application time makes the software copyright protection become simply useless," the entrepreneur told Shanghai's China Business Network.
Applying for a patent involves similar problems to gaining software copyrights, which take at least six months. Preparing application documents is also very complicated and requires a long time.
"When the patent application is approved, some products have already been copied. We have no way to deal with it," said the entrepreneur.
Zhou Xuanbo, a researcher with the information network at the Development Research Center of the State Council, said a new system should be explored to allow software enterprises to apply for intellectual property right protection and receive temporary protection in the region where their enterprise is registered.
Zhou provided a series of suggestions, including provision of online applications, improved design and content for the application process, shorted application time periods, an online application progress checking service and establishing a channel for legal rights.
"Related departments can explore bringing the products' major functions as the basis of copyright protection rather than the software version number," Zhou said and also suggested opening full-time online application channels.
By using the Internet, big data and information mining technology, some enterprises could also crackdown on pirated counterfeit products, Zhou added.
"Only by putting more emphasis on the better protection of innovative results, mass entrepreneurship and mass innovation can we have constant impetus and potential. If not, everyone will use other people's products and creations," said Zhang Kangkang, vice-president of the Chinese Writers' Association, who is also a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee.
"It is a good start that the government is instructing the public to innovate, but at the same time, the protection of innovative results during the entrepreneurship wave should also be given enough attention. Legal methods should be used to protect these innovative results," Zhang said during the annual gathering of China's top decision-makers and political advisers earlier this year.
wanghongyi@chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 07/29/2015 page17)
