TECHNICAL investigators will be introduced to assist the handling of Shenzhen’s intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement cases, it was announced at a meeting on the implementation of the city’s IPR protection regulations Tuesday morning.

According to the city’s market supervision administration, which is also responsible for IPR protection, a technical investigator system has been adopted in accordance with the city’s IPR protection regulations, which went into effect last year. The introduction of professional technicians will greatly improve efficiency in resolving IPR infringement disputes, which usually involve technical jargon that is difficult for nonprofessionals to understand. Moreover, many of the patents involved in the disputes are advanced technologies that involve complicated terminology that bring immense difficulty to handlers and investigators throughout the course of the case.

The market supervision administration said the technical investigators are essential to case resolution, considering that the number of IPR infringement-related disputes it handled in 2019 went up 31 percent compared to that of 2018, reaching 1,608 cases, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported yesterday.

The Daily said the market supervision authority has formulated selection standards for the recruitment of technical investigators and a series of policies regarding the management of the technical investigator system. An application on the number of technical investigators to be hired by the market supervision administration has been submitted to the municipal government for approval.

The city’s efforts to enhance IPR protection also include legislation on the introduction of a punitive compensation system this year, the Daily said.

Under the current regulations, compensation amounts in most domestic IPR cases are too low to discourage IPR infringement.

The legislation on the introduction of a punitive compensation system will significantly raise the amount of compensation to make IPR infringement costly to violators. The move will better protect IPR and encourage science and technology innovation, the Daily said.

Shenzhen ranked first nationwide last year in terms of the number of patent applications and the number of granted patents. The city has had the highest number of PCT applications in the country for 16 consecutive years. The number of Shenzhen PCT applications accounts for 70 percent of the total in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area last year. The number is second only to that of Japan’s Tokyo Bay Area, among the world’s top five bay areas.

The achievements in the technology innovation sector have been made possible by continuous heavy investment in R&D by the Shenzhen authority.

Official statistics showed that Shenzhen’s investment in R&D exceeded 100 billion yuan (US$14.29 billion) in 2018, accounting for 4.2 percent of the city’s GDP, a figure comparable to that of Israel, which has the highest R&D-to-GDP proportion in the world. Last year, Shenzhen doubled its science and technology special fund, investing 30 percent into basic research and basic application research, the Daily said.

(Wei Jie)