On July 4, Shen Changyu, Director of the China National Intellectual Property Administration, presided over a symposium on the protection of intellectual property rights of foreign-funded enterprises in Beijing. He led the main responsible comrades of the relevant departments of the bureau to exchange views and suggestions on intellectual property protection with representatives of 11 foreign-funded enterprises, including Netec, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Phoenix Contact, Merck, Schneider Electric, Ford Motor, Lego, Tesla, Siemens, and gave on-site responses on relevant issues. Hu Wenhui, Deputy Director of the China National Intellectual Property Administration, attended the symposium and introduced the work related to strengthening intellectual property protection of foreign-funded enterprises.
"AstraZeneca is a global biopharmaceutical enterprise that has been deeply rooted in China for more than 30 years. In May 2022, the China National Intellectual Property Administration made a decision to maintain the validity of the patent rights for two preparation patents of an important product of AstraZeneca, which greatly stabilized the confidence of the relevant product market and AstraZeneca's investment in China, and encouraged enterprises to increase their investment in China by nearly 9 billion yuan in succession."
"One of the innovative diabetes drugs of Boehringer Ingelheim, liglitating tablets, encountered infringement cases in the link of bidding and networking. As one of the first major patent infringement dispute administrative adjudication cases of the China National Intellectual Property Administration, it was quickly handled, and the legitimate rights and interests of the patentee were firmly protected. This case also played an important exemplary role in solving drug patent infringement disputes."
Ford Motor attaches great importance to intellectual property protection. As of now, it has about 9000 authorized patents and 1500 registered trademarks in China. The rapidly improving intellectual property protection environment in China has further promoted our innovative development. Ford Motor's two R&D centers in China were upgraded to Ford China Product Centers in 2018, and began actively interacting with other R&D centers around the world, achieving innovation feedback
Representatives of foreign-funded enterprises expressed high appreciation for China's intellectual property protection.
Since last year, we have held multiple symposiums on intellectual property rights for foreign-funded enterprises in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and other places, and have heard many in-depth, practical and specific corporate voices, which have inspired our intellectual property work. Shen Changyu said that as an important aspect of shaping a good business environment, strict protection of intellectual property rights is also one of the most concerned issues for foreign-funded enterprises. To fully leverage the functional role of intellectual property, effectively solve the practical difficulties and problems encountered by foreign-funded enterprises in intellectual property, and provide more targeted services to create a favorable environment for the development of foreign-funded enterprises in China.
At the symposium, various enterprises openly and freely expressed their demands and suggestions for intellectual property protection. Focusing on strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights at the source, we hope to further improve patent examination standards, optimize trademark examination rules, strengthen the governance of malicious trademark registration, and enhance the protection of well-known trademarks; Focusing on strengthening intellectual property law enforcement protection, enterprises have provided feedback on difficulties in providing evidence of product value and filing cases on fixed e-commerce platforms. It is suggested to further strengthen network supervision and enhance cross departmental and cross regional law enforcement cooperation; Focusing on strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights for drugs, enterprises hope to further strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights for centralized procurement in the pharmaceutical field, and integrate intellectual property protection into the entire chain of drug procurement, and so on. These questions have received positive responses and answers from relevant functional departments on site.
All the representatives have expressed their respective demands for intellectual property rights. After the meeting, we will further clarify and address them in a targeted manner. For those involving the functions of other departments, we will also actively coordinate with relevant departments through the inter ministerial joint conference mechanism for the construction of a strong intellectual property country, and promote the resolution of problems, "said Shen Changyu.
Over the years, the China National Intellectual Property Administration has always insisted on equal treatment and protection of intellectual property rights of domestic and foreign business entities. It has done a lot of work in improving top-level design, optimizing the management system, strengthening the rule of law, improving protection efficiency, deepening international cooperation, etc., which has greatly improved the ability and level of intellectual property governance, and created a business environment of fair competition for enterprises and innovation entities in various countries.
Data shows that in 2023, the social satisfaction with intellectual property protection in China increased to 82 points, reaching a historical high. Among them, the satisfaction of foreign-funded enterprises reached 80.55 points, an increase of 1.44 points from 2022; The number of foreign intellectual property applications, authorizations, and holdings in China has been rapidly increasing year by year. Last year, the number of valid invention patents owned by foreign applicants in China exceeded 900000, a year-on-year increase of nearly 5%, and the number of valid trademark registrations exceeded 2.1 million, a year-on-year increase of 3.4%. This fully demonstrates the high importance that foreign-funded enterprises attach to the Chinese market and their confidence in intellectual property protection in China.
Next, the China National Intellectual Property Administration will continue to improve the level of intellectual property protection, further improve the intellectual property protection system, laws and regulations, and platform mechanisms, strengthen source protection, and help create a better business environment and innovation environment. Continuously deepening international cooperation on intellectual property, actively promoting the improvement of international rules and standards on intellectual property, and helping to form a higher-level open economy. Further improve the normalized communication mechanism with foreign-funded enterprises, widely listen to opinions and suggestions, and make all aspects of intellectual property work more solid and effective.
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