Speech by Yin Xintian, Spokesman of the State Intellectual Property Office

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning!

The past 2006 was the first year in the implementation of the 11 th Five-Year Plan for intellectual property (IP) development and also the key year for promoting the formulation of national IP strategy. The Chinese government has, centering round the overall objectives of the country's economic and social development, adopted various measures and consequently, China 's IP undertaking has reached a higher level.

I would like to make an introduction to some of the major work completed in 2006 in the field of IP in China .

Substantial achievements had been made in the formulation of national IP strategy. To date, research on the 20 special topics for the strategy has been completed. The core part of the strategy, that is, the research and formulation work of the “Outline of National IP Strategy” is at the final stage and will be completed soon. The national IP strategy put forward objectives, strategic focal points and safeguarding measures of China 's IP undertaking. It will serve as a programmatic document guiding the IP work throughout the country for a considerable period of time to come and the formulation and implementation of which will exert deep and far promotion effect on China 's IP work.

In the field of patents, the construction of laws and regulations pertaining to patents had been constantly strengthened. The new edition of the “Guidelines for Examination” came into force as of July, 2006 and the “Amendment Draft of the Patent Law of the People's Republic of China (manuscript for review) was submitted to the State Council for review in December. The total of the three kinds of patent applications sustained an increase of big margin. In 2006, a total of 573,000 patent applications were received by the State Intellectual Property Office of P. R. China (SIPO), an increase of 20.3 percent over that of the previous year, of which, 210,000 were invention patent applications, an increase of 21.4 percent over that of the previous year. 58.1 percent of the invention patent applications were filed by domestic applicants and the remaining 41.9 percent were filed by foreign applicants. In the year, the total patents had been granted by the SIPO were 268,000, an increase of 25.2 percent over the previous year. Among these granted patents, 83.5 percent were from domestic applicants and 16.5 percent were from foreign applicants. A total of 3,196 patent dispute cases were accepted by Chinese courts, of which, 70 percent were related to patent infringement disputes. In the same year, 3,227 cases were heard and concluded. In addition, 1,270 patent dispute cases were accepted by administrative departments nationwide and 973 of them were dealt with and concluded.

In the field of trademarks, all kinds of trademark applications had a continuous and substantive growth in China in the year and amounted to 996,000, or an increase of 18.8 percent, of which, the number of trademark registration applications were 766,000. The number of China 's trademark registration applications had maintained the first place of the world for five consecutive years. In the year, a total of 313,000 applications for trademark registration had been examined. Meanwhile, law enforcement had constantly been strengthened and a batch of big and important cases had been investigated and dealt with according to the law. A total of 50,534 trademark violation related cases covering different categories had been investigated and dealt with; in the process of which, 30.36 million pieces (sets) of trademark violation related marks were seized and destroyed; 398 million yuan was fined; 252 cases and 263 suspects involved in trademark offences were transferred to the public security organs.

In the field of copyright, the “Regulations on the Protection of the Right of Communication through Information Network” was pro mulgated by the State Council in the year. A series of special rectifying campaigns had been launched across the country by the National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC). In the year, 10,559 cases were received, and 10,344 of the cases, or 98 percent were resolved by various levels of copyright administrative authorities across the country. Of all the resolved cases, 8,524 were resolved with administrative punishment, 1,585 were resolved with settlement agreement and 235 were transferred to the judicial authorities. A total of more than 73 million pieces of different kinds of pirated products were confiscated, of which, more than 18 million were pirated books, more than 1.1 million were pirated periodical magazines, some 48 million were pirated audio-video products, around 2.01 million were pirated electronic publications, 3.79 million were pirated software discs and 240,000 were other kinds of pirated products.

In the field of customs, Chinese customs offices further reinforced IP custom protection in the year. A total of 2,473 cases of various kinds of import and export IP infringement goods that involved nearly 200 million pieces of infringed products and valued more than 200 million yuan were investigated and seized by the customs offices across the country. About 2,000 IP records were newly added to the IP record database of the General Administration for Customs of China (GACC), an increase of nearly 50 percent over the previous year. By the end of 2006, the number of effective records in the GACC's IP record database amounted to 9,917.

In the field of justice , the people's courts at all levels nationwide had constantly enhanced IP judicial protection. In the year, 14,000 IP civil cases of first instance were accepted and concluded respectively by China 's local courts. 2,686 and 2,652 IP civil cases of second instance were accepted and concluded respectively. Of the 42 newly accepted cases for re-trial proceedings, all were concluded. As for the IP criminal judicial protection, a total of 2,277 criminal cases involving IP infringement were concluded. The judgments passed on 3,508 persons were validated, among whom, 3,507 persons were convicted.

What requires emphasis and attention is that Chinese government regards the effective IP protection as a basic policy of the state. This is a demand not only for attracting foreign investment and technology, creating a sound investment environment and satisfying the foreign requirements, but also necessitated for promoting China 's scientific, technical and economic development as well as for improving the intrinsic requirements of the market economy system. China is confident and firmly believes that its situation of IP protection will be further improved, so that the country's market economy will be developed healthily along the track of legality and credit.

The following is a question and answer period and we are very much willing to answer your questions.