Innovation and related intellectual property protection became highlight words when the 14th five year plan was launched.
The proposal of the CPC Central Committee on formulating the fourteenth five year plan for national economic and social development and the long-term goal of 2035 puts forward the development goal of "significantly improving innovation ability", which requires "adhering to the core position of innovation in the overall situation of China's modernization construction, and taking scientific and technological self-reliance as the strategic support for national development".
To strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights, we should improve the level of the rule of law in the protection of intellectual property rights. He Zhimin, member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese people's Political Consultative Conference and deputy director of the State Intellectual Property Office, said recently in an interview with the rule of law daily that after decades of development, especially since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's intellectual property protection has made historic achievements, which are recognized by the international community. There is no doubt that China has entered the ranks of intellectual property powers. The construction of the rule of law in intellectual property protection, including "strict protection, great protection, fast protection and common protection", has made remarkable achievements.

Comprehensive strength leaped rapidly, protection continued to strengthen

On March 2, the world intellectual property organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, released its latest report. The report once again proves the strength of China's intellectual property rights.
Despite novel coronavirus pneumonia, the PCT international patent application submitted by the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2020 has continued to grow, according to the report. China will continue to lead the world in PCT international patent applications in 2020 after becoming the largest source country of PCT international patent applications submitted through WIPO for the first time in 2019.
According to the report, in 2020, the global PCT international patent applications will increase by 4%, reaching 275900, the highest number ever. China's PCT international patent applications increased by 16.1% year-on-year, ranking first in the world with 68720.
Statistics from the State Intellectual Property Office show that in 2020, the number of invention patents per 10000 people in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) will reach 15.8, and the number of effective trademark registrations will reach 30.173 million, more than four times of 2012. The number of core patents, well-known trademarks, high-quality copyrights and high-quality geographical indication products continued to increase.
The rapid leap in the comprehensive strength of intellectual property benefits from the continuous strengthening of intellectual property protection in China, especially since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.
The civil code has established the major legal principles of intellectual property protection, amended the patent law, trademark law and copyright law, and established the international high standard punitive damages system for infringement, which provides a strong legal guarantee for the strict protection of intellectual property rights.
Through the establishment of the State General Administration of market supervision and administration and the re establishment of the State Intellectual Property Office, China has realized the centralized and unified management of patents, trademarks, geographical indications of origin and layout design of integrated circuits, and the comprehensive law enforcement of patents and trademarks, thus greatly improving the administrative efficiency.
Through the establishment of several intellectual property courts and the establishment of the intellectual property court by the Supreme People's court, the judicial protection of intellectual property has been significantly strengthened.
He Zhimin believes that, in terms of legislation, the framework of China's intellectual property legal system has been formed, and the legal system represented by patent law, trademark law and copyright law is in line with the international common rules, or even has higher standards; in terms of administrative management and administrative law enforcement, the work efficiency has been greatly improved, bringing better protection to the right holders with the advantages of low cost and high efficiency; in terms of judicial protection In terms of protection, the protection efforts are constantly increasing, which is at a very high level in the world. It can be said that in any way, the achievements of intellectual property protection in China are obvious to all.

The legislative rank of the basic law of special law is low

To improve the legal level of intellectual property protection, in he Zhimin's view, we need to speed up the improvement of three aspects at the legislative level.
First, speed up the formulation of special laws. "At present, there is still a lack of special law on intellectual property rights." He Zhimin, for example, said that there is no complete law on the protection of trade secrets, and relevant provisions are scattered in the anti unfair competition law, criminal law and other laws. With the continuous development of China's economy, trade secrets, especially technical secrets, need to be protected more and more.
Zeng Yuqun, member of the CPPCC National Committee and chairman of Ningde times, is also very concerned about the protection of trade secrets. He believes that it is difficult to safeguard the rights of trade secrets, and there are also problems such as high threshold of filing a case and lack of experience in handling a case relying on public security organs to obtain evidence. Therefore, he proposed to speed up the introduction of trade secret protection system to solve the difficult situation of enterprise rights protection.
The lack of special law is also reflected in the low legislative level of some special laws. He Zhimin said that the protection of new plant varieties is still a regulation of the State Council, while the protection of geographical indications is reflected in the trademark law and the provisions on the protection of geographical indication products, which is only a departmental regulation.
Second, accelerate the formulation of the basic law. He Zhimin said that as early as in the outline of the national intellectual property strategy issued by the State Council in 2008, it was proposed to study the necessity and feasibility of formulating basic laws on intellectual property rights. But we still lack a basic law. In the legislative process of the civil code, there was a dispute about the establishment of intellectual property rights, but because intellectual property rights are private rights, not absolute private rights, and also need the regulation of commercial law and administrative law, they do not have the conditions to be included.
"However, I have always advocated that we should establish a basic law on intellectual property as soon as possible, mainly to solve two problems: first, we should solve the inconsistency and common problems existing in the rules of rights and obligations in the current single law, and new problems will emerge in the development of intellectual property. For example, the intellectual property problem in big data can't be solved by establishing a separate law. Therefore, we need to clarify the basic rules through the basic law. Secondly, we should further clarify the corresponding responsibilities of the government and market subjects, and promote the modernization of the intellectual property governance system and governance capacity. " He Zhimin said.
Third, speed up the system design in new areas. He Zhimin believes that intellectual property rights are facing new situations and new problems, and corresponding rules need to be formulated as soon as possible. For example, intellectual property issues in the network environment, the current relevant rules mainly stay in the platform regulation, patent law also has some principles, but they are not specific.

Actively strengthen social protection and promote extraterritorial application of laws

Good law and good governance, while improving the legal system of intellectual property protection, also need to make efforts in law enforcement.
He Zhimin believes that after the new round of institutional reform, patent and trademark law enforcement will be integrated into market supervision and comprehensive law enforcement. At present, the biggest problem in the administrative protection of intellectual property rights is the lack of law enforcement force, and the grass-roots law enforcement is facing great challenges. The specific problems are shown in two aspects: first, the grass-roots law enforcement force is relatively weak; second, the grass-roots law enforcement investment is insufficient.
He Zhimin also pointed out that the role of industrial organizations at the social level is relatively limited, and the protection of intellectual property rights only depends on administrative and judicial protection is not enough, which needs to be promoted from the social level.
He Zhimin is also concerned about the overseas response to intellectual property protection. "In the process of" going out ", our enterprises encounter more overseas intellectual property disputes, and in some countries, they also encounter long arm jurisdiction, so they are easy to fall into passivity."
This year, the Central Committee of the democratic revolution also paid attention to this issue in the proposal: "going to sea" enterprises are facing increasing pressure and challenges. The protection of overseas intellectual property rights is characterized by increasing disputes, more passive response to lawsuits, and higher response rate, but the winning rate is still low and even difficult to safeguard rights. To this end, the Central Committee of the democratic revolution put forward the construction of overseas intellectual property support mechanism and other suggestions.
In he Zhimin's view, China's foreign-related legal system of intellectual property protection is still not perfect, and it can not effectively deal with overseas intellectual property disputes, so we need to further establish and improve the response mechanism. (reporter Zhang Wei)