A new regulation on intellectual property rights (IPR)
protection for exhibits comes into effect as of Wednesday.
The regulation was jointly issued by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, the
State Administration for Industry and Commerce of China, the
National Copyright Administration of China, and the State
Intellectual Property Office.
According to the regulation, exhibition organizers have to
strengthen the protection and auditing of IPR protection of
exhibits.
An office should be established by exhibition organizers to
handle complaints about IPR infringement if an exhibition is to be
held for over three days, the regulation said.
The regulation also requires corresponding departments to accept
and hear cases involving IPR infringement, including those for
patents, trademarks and copyrights.
Those exhibition organizers and participants infringing IPR may
be prohibited from holding or joining exhibitions again.
In January this year, about 1,000 organizations in China's
exhibition industry jointly signed a declaration, promising to rule
out any IPR infringement in their exhibitions.
(Xinhua News Agency March 1, 2006)