Chang Zhipeng

57589527@qq.com

THE Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone released the achievements it has made on intellectual property rights (IPR) protection over the past decade and disclosed an action plan to become a demonstration zone of IPR protection at a press conference held in Qianhai yesterday.

Statistics from a white paper released by the China (Shenzhen) Intellectual Property Protection Center show that over the past 10 years, Qianhai-registered enterprises have submitted about 58,000 domestic patent applications at an average annual growth rate 26 percent higher than the city’s average. Forty-four percent of the 58,000 patent applications, or 25,000, have been approved by the State Intellectual Property Bureau.

The number of invention patent applications in Qianhai was 28,000, accounting for nearly half of the total number submitted by Shenzhen. Over two-thirds of the approved invention patents are related to high-tech industries such as computer science, communications, Internet and biomedical testing.

The achievements above are largely contributed to a constantly improving IPR protection system established in the free trade area.

On the basis of what has been achieved, Qianhai aims to further enhance its efforts on IPR protection to become a demonstration zone of IPR protection.

According to Song Liang, director of the legal affairs department of the Qianhai authority, in the next five years, Qianhai will take 80 concrete measures in nine major aspects, including strengthening cooperation with professionals and institutes in Hong Kong and Macao, furthering construction of its IPR protection system, establishing or improving judicial, administrative, arbitral and notary protections of IPR, exploring a mechanism of social governance, enhancing overseas IPR protection, and consolidating corresponding safeguard measures.

The Qianhai authority also said that it will strengthen subsidy support to IPR protection institutions, release a white paper on IPR protection on an annual basis, and establish an evaluation index system for IPR protection.