China strengthens IPR protection to ensure development
China will strengthen IPR protection to guarantee highquality development in the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), a senior intellectual property official said.
The NIPA will improve the top design of IPR protection according to the outline of the country's 14th five-year plan for national economic and social development, Shen Changyu, head of the NIPA, said at a press conference.
The NIPA has basically completed the drafting of the IPR protection and application plan for the 14th FiveYear Plan period and is promoting a new round of research on revising the Trademark Law, Shen said.
In 2020, China handled 31,300 trademark violation cases and over 42,000 administrative adjudication cases related to patent infringement disputes. It will continue to implement a strict IPR protection system and punitive compensation system, he added.
Shen said that China will further improve its funding and reward policies on patents, highlight highquality development, and protect and encourage highvalue patents.
The number of high-value invention patents per 10,000 people has been included as an important indicator in the outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan, which would promote the shift from pursuing quantity to improving quality in IP work, Shen added.
China moved up to 14th place in the Global Innovation Index of 2020 by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), ranking first among the mid-income economies globally.
In 2020, China was the largest user of the WIPO's Patent Cooperation Treaty system, with nearly 69,000 applications. Asian and European markets were mixed Monday following a strong end to last week on Wall Street as traders turned their attention to the Federal Reserve's latest policy meeting and earnings from corporate giants.
A strong reading on US and European manufacturing and services activity provided a positive catalyst for investors, who appear to have got over President Joe Biden's plan to almost double capital gains tax, while Washington's decision to resume using Johnson & Johnson's vaccine also boosted optimism.
However, the president's $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan could take longer to get through Congress than hoped after a member of Biden's own party opposed the size of it and backed a slimmed-down version put forward by Republicans.
Joe Manchin's stance could leave the Democrats struggling to pass the plan through the Senate owing to their wafer-thin majority.
"It appears an infrastructure bill appears some way off, as too does further spending plans this side of the mid-term elections in 2022," said National Australia Bank's Tapas Strickland.
Asian traders started the day on a strong note but struggled in some markets to hold morning gains, with Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, Manila and Bangkok all up but Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney and Jakarta falling.
London and Paris were slightly lower in early trade, though Frankfurt ticked higher.
Still, trading floors remain on edge over spiking virus infections around the world, with India seeing five straight days of more than 300,000 new cases in a surge that has overwhelmed hospitals and left severe oxygen and medicine shortages. However, Mumbai rose more than one percent Monday.