Amendments to the law are expected to go to the National People's Congress for passage in the next six months, he said.

Dong is attending the China-EU Symposium on Trademark and Related Intellectual Property Rights in Weihai, Shandong Province.

The symposium, co-organized by Beijing University, the Intellectual Property Association of Chinese Universities, the EU-China Intellectual Property Rights Cooperation Program and Shandong University, will run through tomorrow.

More than 80 officials, practitioners, scholars and business leaders and representatives from the EU-China cooperation program attended the symposium, which the Chinese Government hopes will find a solution for improving protection of intellectual property rights, official sources said.

With the country's pending entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), China needs to rewrite its Trademark Law to meet international standards, said Dong.

The law currently does not include guidelines for international affairs and resorts to international treaties to deal with international trademark disputes, he said.

The amendments are expected to include not only items pertaining to WTO rules, but also actual needs arising from China's experience during the past two decades of reform.

Theresa Grace Dunphy, European project director of the EU-China cooperation program, said protection of intellectual property rights is mainly the business of academics and companies in China and most Chinese do not think it affects ordinary people's lives.

It decides the range and quality of consumer goods and almost "everything that people buy," she said.

The protection of intellectual property rights will "determine, in part, if the economy grows quickly and strongly and in good health, or slowly and sluggishly," she said in a speech at the symposium.

Dong said China's definition of trademark should be expanded to conform to international standards.

China's legislative system has not been able to catch up with the country's reform and opening up, he added.

The Trademark Law was established in 1982 and first amended in 1993.

During the past decade, the State Council has issued several regulations on trademarks to accommodate China's rapid economic development.

The regulations have proven practical, but have not always been in harmony with the law.

Dong said the law needs to be amended to make it practical.

The law should be strengthened to fight piracy and property rights infringement, he added.

Dunphy said an improved protection of intellectual property rights will help facilitate China's trade and economic cooperation with other countries.

It will affect transfer of technology and exports to China.

The protection of intellectual property rights is "a real concern of foreign companies in making decisions on whether to invest in China and to share their technologies with their Chinese partners," she said.

The cooperation program is making use of the Internet to increase public awareness of intellectual property rights and their use and protection among Chinese and foreign consumers, businesses and policy makers, she said.

(China Daily July 4, 2001)