China ready to transform rich resources into tangible value

Shen Changyu insists that intellectual property plays a pivotal role in China's innovation-driven development.

The commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office made the statement ahead of the Summer Davos forum that opens in Dalian, Liaoning province, on Wednesday.

High-speed trains made in China are tested at the China Academy of Railway Sciences in Beijing. The trains, which were built using Chinese standards, are designed to have a maximum speed of 350 km per hour. Provided to China Daily

"IP provides the primary impetus for innovation," he said.

The theme of this year's Summer Davos - charting a new course for growth - corresponds with China's new innovation-driven development path.

"Protecting IP is equivalent to guarding innovation and making full use of the IP system encourages innovation," Shen quoted Premier Li Keqiang as saying.

"IP is a bridge linking research to the market. It is the key to transforming technology expertise to industrial and economic strength," the commissioner said.

That partially explains why the central government attaches significance to the IP system and is trying to make it a fundamental guarantee to motivate innovation, he said.

At a meeting at the end of last year, President Xi Jinping noted that technological progress and comprehensive innovation need be given more attention amid the new normal of slower yet higher-quality economic growth.

The central government issued a policy dedicated to accelerating innovation-driven growth in April.

"Protection and use of IP will spur our people into creation and startups, thus providing better support for the innovation-driven development," said Shen, who is also a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Shen and his team developed the visor for the helmet used by the astronauts in China's Shenzhou-7 spacecraft in 2008, before he was named SIPO commissioner at the end of 2013.

Data shows that China topped the world in terms of the number of invention patent applications for four consecutive years, with 928,000 filings in 2014, a 12.5 percent rise from a year earlier.

The nation has ranked first worldwide in terms of volume of trademark applications for 12 consecutive years, with more than 1.88 million filed in 2014, accounting for 41 percent of the world's total.

The country is also at the world's vanguard in other IP sectors, such as industrial designs, registered copyrights and new plant varieties.

However, contrast with such a large IP stockpile, the number of high-quality patented technologies are still small. "We are in urgent need of a change from being a large filer to a strong powerhouse, from growing bigger to building up muscles," Shen said.

The State Council set a clear goal of building China into a strong IP country in an action plan for further implementing the national IP strategy for 2014-2020, which the cabinet released at the end of last year.

As one of the campaigners for change, Shen said that the new goal is an inevitable choice for China's IP development and responses to the realistic demand for the country's economic and social development.

A number of quantifiable indexes, such as IP-intensive industries' contribution to GDP, core patents, invention patent ownership per 10,000 people and well-known trademarks can be factored into the judgment of whether a country is counted as an IP powerhouse, he said.

"Besides such globally common references, we also need to look to the development circumstances our country is in," he said.

Without considering the real situation in China, the goal of building an IP powerhouse would lose its root, Shen said.

A top priority

The question of how to transform the rich IP reservoir into real production capacity is a priority for SIPO, the commissioner said.

The office is drafting and campaigning for the revision of the Patent Law and the Service Invention Regulations.

The draft of the former, which has been submitted to the State Council for approval, includes added articles for patent industrialization and use. The draft of the latter has actionable provisions of patent ownership, interest allocation and rules concerning patent transactions and industrialization.

"We are advancing the reform in the use, disposition and yield management of research achievements, and trying to build up a sound mechanism for interest allocation in a bid to increase motivation in creation and industrialization," Shen said.

At the same time, SIPO, in cooperation with other entities, including the Ministry of Finance and the Beijing municipal government, invested 1 billion yuan ($157 million) in building public patent service platforms to facilitate trusteeship, transactions, IP-collateralized financing and industrialization.

"Also, we are exploring the setting up of funds designed for IP industrialization, commercialization and patent-collateralized financing risk compensation," he added.

Global adventure

Data from the World Intellectual Property Organization shows that China contributed more than 25,500 international patents filed through the Patent Cooperation Treaty to 215,000 PCT fillings worldwide in 2014, ranking third in the world. This marked an 18.7 percent increase and made China one of the fastest growing countries and the only one in the world to achieve a double-digit growth.

Huawei Technologies, a high-tech Chinese company, replaced Panasonic from Japan to rank atop the global PCT chart, with 3,442 filings, while another telecommunication giant, ZTE, took third place.

As more Chinese players compete in the international arena, increased IP awareness and capacity are essential to their "faster, steadier and farther" overseas trips, Shen said.

He suggested domestic companies increase research and development expenditure to sharpen their edge and pay particular attention to filing patents and trademarks in targeted markets.

Conducting evaluation and analysis of the IP environment in the targeted markets and dealing with overseas IP disputes will help them navigate their overseas adventures more smoothly, he added.

The Internet is another cross-border field faced with IP disputes.

Online trade has seen "explosive growth" momentum in recent years, yet due to difficulties in tracking down online infringement evidence, IP protection faces increasing complexities, Shen said.

SIPO is enhancing enforcement targeted at online infringements, he said.

IP authorities nationwide investigated more than 2,300 e-commerce patent infringements in the first eight months of this year, a surge of 72.6 percent year-on-year.

wangxin@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 09/09/2015 page15)