China News Service, Guangzhou, March 5th: How to create a "new highland" for intellectual property protection with Chinese characteristics?
——Exclusive interview with Zhang Ping, professor at Peking University Law School
China News Service reporter Wang Jian and Xu Qingqing
Intellectual property protection is an important part of the fields of technological innovation and economic development, and it is also a focus of widespread concern in the world today.
What innovations and highlights has China made in the field of intellectual property protection in recent years?
How to create a “new highland” for intellectual property protection with Chinese characteristics?
Recently, Zhang Ping, professor at Peking University Law School, executive director of Peking University Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Intellectual Property Development Institute, and deputy director of Peking University Wuhan Institute of Artificial Intelligence, accepted an exclusive interview with China News Service's "East-West Question" and focused on the above issues. Discuss and introduce the relevant results of Guangzhou Development Zone’s comprehensive reform experiments in deepening the protection and application of intellectual property rights.
The interview transcript is summarized as follows:
China News Service reporter: What is the current progress of China's intellectual property protection work, and what is its position internationally?
Zhang Ping:
China’s intellectual property system was established with the reform and opening up and is closely related to the development dynamics of the market economy.
In the early days of reform and opening up, economic development was dominated by the manufacturing industry. Many companies produced using models such as "processing with supplied materials" and "three to one supplement". The level of innovation was not high, and the market demand for brand protection was weak.
Since then, China has transformed from a manufacturing economy to an innovative economy. More and more high-tech companies have emerged, getting rid of the role of "licensee" in the patent field, and private brands have become an urgent need.
Today, China has ranked first in the world in terms of the number of patent applications submitted through the PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty, the English abbreviation of Patent Cooperation Treaty, an international treaty on patents) for four consecutive years, and China has become a veritable intellectual property powerhouse. A major country and an important pole in the world’s innovation landscape.
On April 26, 2023, World Intellectual Property Day, the Intellectual Property Department of the Hong Kong SAR Government held the "Let's Protect Intellectual Property" exhibition.
Photo by Li Zhihua
China News Service reporter: In recent years, what innovative measures has China taken in the field of intellectual property protection? Among them, what are the new developments in the comprehensive reform of intellectual property use and protection in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area?
Zhang Ping:
China’s intellectual property judicial system has also gone through a process from scratch. It consists of patent law, trademark law, copyright law, e-commerce law, anti-monopoly law, science and technology progress law, e-commerce law and other laws and regulations. The intellectual property legal system is gradually improving and integrating with international standards.
Unlike other countries in the world, China's "judicial protection of intellectual property rights" has a comprehensive organizational system from the Supreme Court to provincial higher people's courts and local courts. The reform of this system is well-deserved "Chinese characteristics."
In addition, China’s “three-in-one” trial system for intellectual property rights is also a unique judicial system innovation in China.
At the same time, China is deploying a new round of technological innovation in the industrial field and cultivating high-value patents and well-known trademarks.
On January 1, 2019, the Intellectual Property Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court of China was inaugurated in Beijing, and all judges of the Intellectual Property Tribunal of the Supreme People's Court took the Constitutional Oath.
Photo by Li Huisi
In the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Guangdong has deployed and promoted the construction of a national intellectual property protection demonstration zone, which has brought together many large innovative companies and has a huge rate of intellectual property application and production application.
Many major intellectual property cases involving Guangdong enterprises as parties have become typical examples and have a positive impact on international intellectual property protection.
In addition, take the Guangzhou Development Zone as an example. This zone is the only comprehensive reform pilot area for the use and protection of intellectual property rights approved by the State Council of China. Action Plan for small and medium-sized enterprises) and other intellectual property promotion measures. In recent years, it has also focused on the protection of geographical indications, overseas intellectual property rights protection, digital economy intellectual property protection and other subdivided areas, and launched a series of innovative measures, which can also be regarded as " Innovation with Chinese characteristics.
In May 2021, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Intellectual Property Talent Development Conference and a series of activities to connect the supply and demand of intellectual property talents were held in Guangzhou.
Photo by Chen Chuhong
China News Service reporter: What are the comprehensive reform results regarding overseas intellectual property rights protection? How should the results of these comprehensive reforms be used to enhance China's international competitive advantage?
Zhang Ping:
China has previously issued the "Enterprise Intellectual Property Management Standards", which guide enterprises to ensure personnel protection, institutional arrangements, patent and trademark layout in accordance with national standards. This is the prototype of "Intellectual Property Compliance", which mainly helps enterprises to formulate A supporting "holistic approach" that is produced in line with national standards to achieve sustainable development is also an innovative measure with "Chinese characteristics".
At the same time, China has also carried out a lot of exploration in aspects such as intellectual property securitization, intellectual property operation, and intellectual property capitalization, such as "intellectual property pledge", "intellectual property insurance", and "intellectual property stock issuance".
These measures aim to promote the utilization of intellectual property rights by small and medium-sized enterprises through national public funds and enhance their awareness, capabilities and effectiveness of intellectual property protection.
On February 8, 2023, the Intellectual Property Development Research Center of the State Intellectual Property Office of China and the People's Insurance Company of China officially released the industry's first "China Intellectual Property Insurance Development White Paper (2022)" jointly completed by the two parties in Beijing.
Photo by Sun Zifa
In the future, the situation of overseas intellectual property rights protection will be very complex and diverse.
Generally speaking, the purpose of filing overseas dispute cases is not the litigation itself, but to enter the market and win back profits.
In recent years, many well-known high-tech companies have emerged in China, such as Tencent, BGI, NetEase, etc. They attach great importance to overseas business, actively respond to overseas intellectual property disputes, and hope to bring the "patent war" back to China's home court.
Take the case of Huawei and Samsung as an example. First, Samsung sued Huawei in the global market, and Huawei also initiated a lawsuit against Samsung in China.
Later, the case ended with Huawei and Samsung reaching a global settlement, embodying the classic litigation strategy of "stopping litigation with litigation" and "seeking peace with litigation."
Of course, overseas rights protection is also closely related to the strength of the company.
For example, some small and medium-sized enterprises are willing to defend their rights, but do not have the financial strength to deal with litigation. The above-mentioned "intellectual property insurance" can support them by compensating attorney fees.
On March 16, 2021, Huawei released the "Innovation and Intellectual Property White Paper 2020", stating that it will start charging royalties for 5G patents from 2021.
Photo by Chen Yuyu
China News Service reporter: What challenges do you think China will face first on the international stage in the field of intellectual property protection? How to respond reasonably?
Zhang Ping:
China has carried out a lot of international cooperation. In September 2021, it officially applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and in November of the same year, it applied to join the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA).
Therefore, the State Council of China requires that in conditional free trade zones, the implementation of high-standard international economic and trade rules (hereinafter referred to as "high-standard rules") be improved, which puts forward higher requirements for the protection of intellectual property rights in the Greater Bay Area.
For example, China has fulfilled its commitments after joining the WTO and strengthened the protection of trademarks. However, it only has enforcement standards for counterfeit trademarks and does not include customs "confusing trademark enforcement" standards.
Once the CPTPP and DEPA are added, it means that the customs must immediately judge and grasp confusingly similar trademarks. If it is judged that the two trademarks are similar (i.e. confusing), the goods can be seized.
China is a major manufacturing country, and many goods may be seized and stuck at customs.
Furthermore, aligning with high-standard rules requires in-depth adjustments and revisions to China’s intellectual property laws.
However, in some pilot areas such as the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, they began to promote the docking of high-standard rules without waiting for changes in legal provisions. Enterprises in the area immediately needed to fulfill relevant commitments, and at the same time faced the risk of the above-mentioned goods being seized, and found themselves in a difficult situation. The dilemma of protecting one's own interests.
Therefore, connecting high-standard rules is the next step that should be paid great attention to in the comprehensive reform plan.
In April 2022, the "Asian Intellectual Property: Trends and Opportunities" sub-forum of the Boao Forum for Asia 2022 Annual Conference was held in Boao, Hainan.
Photo by Han Haidan
Reporter from China News Service: In the comprehensive reform experiment of the use and protection of intellectual property rights in Guangzhou Development Zone, what issues should we pay attention to in the future? What planning advice do you have for this?
Zhang Ping:
Compared with developed countries, China's intellectual property protection system construction has been basically in line. It is even better than many countries in terms of protection awareness and related university subject settings, but there are still shortcomings in practical work.
For example, there are issues such as the low quality of patents and the balance of compensation amounts.
When Google is sued abroad, the amount of compensation is usually in the billions of dollars, but it is difficult for Chinese companies to reach such a scale; in the food field, China's established compensation standard is "five times", but considering the differences in prices and various countries and regions, Actual implementation should be more flexible.
On December 16, 2020, the attorneys general of 10 states including Texas filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing it of using its monopoly position to suppress its opponents in the field of online advertising.
The picture shows Google's corporate headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Photo by Liu Guanguan
China's overall protection of intellectual property rights still needs to be improved. Specifically, we can refer to the current promotion of "big protection", "strict protection" and "strong protection", aiming at high-quality intellectual property rights, high competitiveness, and high compensation payments.
In addition, in terms of trademark protection, enterprises should be guided to establish brand protection awareness and cultivate the awareness of "century-old stores" instead of "shooting and changing places."
(over)
Expert profile:
Zhang Ping, a professor at Peking University Law School, was interviewed by a reporter from China News Service in Guangzhou.
Photo by Chen Chuhong
Zhang Ping is a professor at Peking University Law School, executive director of Peking University Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Intellectual Property Development Institute, and deputy director of Peking University Wuhan Institute of Artificial Intelligence.
He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Washington School of Law, the Institute of Intellectual Property in Tokyo, Japan, and the Stanford University Law School.
He has participated in national mid- and long-term science and technology development planning research; presided over research on technological innovation and intellectual property strategy, research on intellectual property protection and application in the information society, research on the transformation model and policy of patent achievements in Chinese universities, basic Internet legislation, data element market establishment and legal governance, etc. A number of national key research projects.
He is the author of "Intellectual Property Law", "Standardization and Intellectual Property Strategy", "Shared Wisdom: Analysis of Intellectual Property Issues in Open Source Software", etc.