China's Action Plan on Intellectual Property Protection 2011

Office of the Inter-Ministerial Joint Meeting for Implementation of the National Intellectual Property Strategy

Contents

(I) Formulating and Revising IP Laws, Regulations and Regulatory Documents 

(II) Improving IPR Enforcement 

(III) Promoting IPR Services 

(IV) Enhancing IP Education and Training and Team Building of IP Talents 

(V) Enhancing the Publicity Work and Intellectual Property Culture 

(VI) Expanding Foreign Exchanges and Cooperation on IP 

In order to implement the Outline of the National Intellectual Property Strategy and effectively promote the overall intellectual property (IP) protection in 2011, the following Action Plan is formulated under the guidelines of "Improving System, Strengthening Enforcement, Emphasizing Special Campaigns, Promoting Coordination, Enhancing Publicity, and Regulating Administration".

(I) Formulating and Revising IP Laws, Regulations and Regulatory Documents

1. Laws, Regulations and Rules Related to Patents, Trademarks and Copyright

(1) To ensure the amendment of Regulations on Patent Commissioning.
(2) To amend the Measures on Patent Compulsory Licenses.
(3) To study and formulate the Regulations on Service Technological Achievements and the Measures on Benefit Sharing of Service Inventors in case of Changing Their Employers.  
(4) To ensure the revision of the Trademark Law, to speed up the legislation process and to conduct research for the amendment of the Implementing Rules of the Trademark Law.
(5) To actively promote the revision of the Copyright Law and the amendment of related laws and regulations. 
(6) To speed up the legislation process of the Measures on Copyright Protection of Folklores. 
(7) To formulate the Measures on Remuneration for Statutory Licensing of Textbooks and to promote the revision of the Provisional Measures on Voluntary Registration of Works.

2. Other Laws, Regulations and Rules

(8) To promote the legislation coordination on the Administration Regulation on Bio-Genetic Resources. 
(9) To amend the Regulations on the Protection of New Varieties of Plants and to study the legislation feasibility of the Law on the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. 
(10) To promote the formulation of related regulations and rules on foreign trade-related IPR protection in the Foreign Trade Law, and to coordinate in drafting the Anti-Monopoly Guide on the Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights. 
(11) To accelerate the legislation process of the Law of Traditional Chinese Medicine, to continue carrying out the communication and coordination in the legislation of Law of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and to strengthen the IPR protection of traditional Chinese medicine. 
(12) To complete the revision of the Implementing Measures on Regulation of the Customs Protection of Intellectual Property Rights. 
(13) To improve the Regulations on the Administration of Formulation and Revision of the National Standard Involving Patents (Provisional).
(14) To formulate and publish the approval rules on new varieties of forest plants. 
(15) To ensure the revision of the Unfair Competition Law, and after the revision of the Unfair Competition Law, to undertake the drafting and research work of the related rules for its implementation. 
(16) To revise the Regulation on National Defense Patents, and to formulate related rules on IPRs of National Defense. 

3. Judicial Interpretations and Regulating Documents

(17) To promulgate the Several Opinions of the Supreme People's Court on Piloting Trial of All Civil, Administrative and Criminal IPR Cases Concentratively by IP Tribunals at Some Local People's Courts. 
(18) To promulgate the Supreme People's Court's Rules Concerning Several Issues in the Application of Law During Adjudication of Monopoly-Related Civil Disputes. 
(19) To formulate the Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Application of the Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Intellectual Property Infringement.
(20) To complete the research of judicial protection of online copyright, and to draft judicial interpretations concerning the trial of network copyright.
(21) To draft when appropriate the trial standard of administrative cases related to right confirmation of patents and trademarks and guidance opinions on judicial protection of trade secret. 
(22) To promulgate the Opinions on Several Issues on Strengthening Judicial Protection of Intellectual Property Rights and Actively Promoting the Transformation of the Economic Development Mode. 
(23) To continue revising and to timely issue the related regulations on labors, such as the Regulations on File Management of Enterprises Employees, and Several Opinions on the Implementation of the Labor Contract Law, in order to improve trade secret protection policies concerning competition restriction. 
(24) In order to cooperate with the implementation of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Law, to formulate the Policies on Supporting the Protection of the Productivity of Intangible Cultural Heritage, Policies On the Inheritor and Inheritance Mechanism Construction of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Norms on the Categorized Protection of the National Intangible Cultural Heritage, Compiling Regulations on General Plans for the National Cultural Ecology Reserve Regions, Procedures for the Management of Precious Relics of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Protection Policies for the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Minorities with Small Population.
(25) To promulgate the Guiding Opinions on Copyright Administrative Enforcement, so as to further improve the copyright administrative enforcement system and support administrative enforcement agencies to carry out copyright enforcement in culture market.

(II) Improving IPR Enforcement

1. To Carry out Special Enforcement Campaigns

(26) To thoroughly implement the Action Plan on Special Campaign against IPR Infringements and the Production and Sales of Counterfeited and Forged Commodities, to organize and coordinate the special campaign, and to promote the construction of the long-term mechanism for IPR protection in China. 
(27) To promote the use of legal software in government departments and businesses, to take effective measures to accomplish the inspection and rectifying work on using legal software in central and local government administrations on time in 2011, to cooperate with departments in charge of finance and government-affairs administration in fund guarantee and software assets management, and to construct a long-term working mechanism for using legal software and resisting pirated software. To further promote enterprises to use legal software, to give a full play to the industrial associations' positive role in promoting legal software in businesses, to accelerate the promotion of legal software in foreign-invested or privately owned enterprises, and to complete the pilot work of software assets management in 30 enterprises. 
(28) To launch the special campaign against web infringement and piracy activities, to strengthen the supervision of websites, to enhance the combating of online infringement cases, and to fight against online sales of fake and/or inferior commodities, downloading services for pirated films, TV programs and dramas, and software, private servers or add-on operation for pirated online games, or other crimes of IPR infringement, so as to strengthen the online IPR protection, and to establish a normalized mechanism for copyright administrative protection on the Internet. 
(29) To continue pushing on the Operation Strike of the Sword aiming to combat IPR infringements and the production and sales of counterfeited and forged commodities, to strengthen the effort in guidance, coordination, supervision and inspection, and to guarantee the nationwide promotion of the special operation. 
(30) In line with the Circular on Providing Good Legal Service by Lawyers for the National Special Campaign against IPR Infringements and the Production and Sales of Counterfeited and Forged Commodities, to organize and guide lawyers to do a good job in defending for cases involving IPR infringements and the production and sales of counterfeited and forged commodities.
(31) To organize agricultural administrations nationwide to implement the Action Plan on the Special Campaign against Infringing upon Variety Rights and Producing or Selling Fake or Inferior Seeds, to expose a group of infringing and counterfeiting enterprises to public, and to destroy fake and/or inferior seeds. 
(32) To organize and carry out the special campaign of regulating cultural market, and to continue to carry out the special campaigns for regulating Internet and against IPR infringements and the production and sales of counterfeited and forged commodities. 
(33) To carry out self-supervision and self-correction activities in central enterprises, in cooperation with the special campaign against IPR infringements and the production and sales of counterfeited and forged commodities, and guide central enterprises to formulate corresponding plans for rapid response to IPRs. 
(34) Under the requirements of the Special Campaign against IPR Infringements and the Production and Sales of Counterfeited and Forged Commodities, to actively implement and deploy the campaign among all customs in China, and remain the high-pressure stress on fighting against infringement activities during importation and exportation, to strengthen analyzing and processing infringement information in different ways, to continue fulfilling the mechanism of cooperating with IPR owners, and to implement a precise cracking down upon the illegal activities in importing and exporting infringement commodities.
(35) To improve the substantial results of the Special Campaign against IPR Infringements and the Production and Sales of Counterfeited and Forged Commodities, to emphasize on illegal behaviors of infringing foreign-related trademarks and well-known trademarks, to practically constrain malicious registered trademark, and strictly investigate and punish illegal printing of trademark labels and counterfeited packaging designs of famous commodities. 
(36) To push and implement all the works in the Special Campaign against IPR Infringements and the Production and Sales of Counterfeited and Forged Commodities in production, emphasize on some key areas, and actively research and establish a permanent IPR protection mechanism for cracking down upon counterfeits, to actively push the construction of hotline "12365", the report and management command system, continue working on "cracking down upon counterfeits, protecting famous and excellent commodities". 
(37) To organize the key areas in the Special Campaign against IPR Infringements and the Production and Sales of Counterfeited and Forged Commodities to destroy confiscated pirated publications, to supervise key cases by requiring limited time on concluding cases.
(38) To organize and carry out special campaign against producing or selling fake or inferior forest germchit and for protecting new varieties of plants, to strictly crack down upon producing or selling fake or inferior forest germchit, and investigate and punish illegal activities such as unlicensed production and sale of forest germchit, infringing and counterfeiting new varieties, and etc., and to protect the breeders' rights according to the law. 
(39) To organize the implementation of the Plan on the Special Campaign of Law Enforcement by IPR Administrations, to firmly crack down upon repeated and malicious patent infringement in a large amount or passing-off patent activity, to enhance capability of handling IPR complaints, to promote the construction of IPR assistance centers, to strengthen the IPR protection in exhibitions, to strengthen the inter-departmental and inter-regional enforcement cooperation, to promote the coordination and cooperation between administrative enforcement and judicial protection, and to try best in reviewing and supervising law enforcement. 
(40) To actively cooperate with the Special Campaign against IPR Infringements and the Production and Sales of Counterfeited and Forged Commodities according to the law, to strengthen the judicial protection against criminal violations of IPRs, to strictly punish the criminal IPR violations, so as to give a full play to the punishment and deterrence function against crimes. 
(41) To actively participate in the Special Campaign against IPR Infringements and the Production and Sales of Counterfeited and Forged Commodities, to severely fight against crimes of IPR infringement, to ratify arrests and prosecute cases in time, and to strengthen supervision of important and influential cases. 

2. Strengthening Regular Enforcement

(42) To organize the compilation of the Guidance Manual for Handling IPR Crimes, so as to help front-line law enforcement officers correctly understand and apply relevant laws, and to regulate the acceptance procedures and handling of cases. 
(43) To strengthen the research of DNA and other appraisal technology for law enforcement, to formulate the regulation on DNA finger-print appraisal process for some major crops, to support the establishment of qualified plant varieties appraisal agencies, and to improve the enforcement appraisal system for plant varieties. 
(44) To actively launch market inspection on pre-installation of pirated computer software, to focus on strengthening the management from the source of computer manufacturers, and to enhance the market supervision on software or other key products. 
(45) To establish a mediation mechanism for copyright disputes, and to basically form a civil mediation mechanism with an effective linkage between the judicial and administrative agencies.
(46) To organize the formulation and promulgation of China's Action Plan on Intellectual Property Protection 2011. 
(47) To push the establishment of IP assistance centers, to deeply carry out the "5.26" Law Enforcement Promotion Project and the construction of National Key Liaison Bases on Patent Protection. 
(48) To organize all courts in China to carry out the annual activity on "promoting the transformation of economic development mode by strengthening IPR judicial protection", and to hold the seminar on the IPR judicial protection of all courts in China. 
(49) To ensure the protection of geographical indications by strengthening the supervision and random inspection and harshly cracking down the infringement and counterfeiting of geographical indications. 

3. Strengthening IPR Judicial Protection

(50) To continue promoting the pilot work on hearing all civil, administrative and criminal IPR cases at the IP tribunals. 
(51) To effectively improve the jurisdiction system of civil IPR cases, to further expand the jurisdiction of local courts over common IPR cases, and improve the territorial jurisdiction of selected courts. 
(52) To launch "the Three Fives Program" to strengthen the infrastructure  construction of local courts on handling IPR cases, that is to select five primary courts that have jurisdiction over IPR cases as the first group of demonstration local courts in China's IPR judicial protection, select five intermediate courts as the first group of IPR judicial protection research bases of the Supreme People's Court, and select five key colleges and universities as the first group of the IPR judicial protection research bases of the China's people's courts.
(53) To carry out "Special Activity for Supervising the Administrative Enforcement Authorities to Transfer Suspicious Criminal Cases Violating IPRs", to seriously investigate the administrative authorities for cases should be transferred, accepted, or punished but handled otherwise, and for cases should be sentenced to criminal punishment, but only given fines, and for behaviors playing favoritism and committing irregularities, and etc, and to supervise and correct these behaviors without delay. 
(54) To further promote the "Linkage of Two Laws", actively promote administrative enforcement and criminal judicial authorities to establish a mechanism characterized by "network linkage and information sharing". 

(III) Promoting IPR Services

(55) To organize and formulate the regulation on IPR judicial appraisal classification, requirements for admission and practice, and other documents related to IPR registration management. 
(56) To strengthen communication and coordination on issues related to lawyer's practice in patent and trademark agency, to create conditions for lawyers to practice in patent agency, and to promote the promulgation of regulatory documents on lawyer's practice in trademark agency. 
(57) To study and formulate Guidance for Lawyers to Practice in Patent Businesses, Guidance for Lawyers to Practice in Trademark Businesses and other business operation instructions, so as to help China's lawyers to conduct patent, trademark and other IPR-related business. 
(58) To include more IPR intermediary organizations to serve for the implementation of the outline of agricultural IPR strategy, so as to support agricultural enterprises, public institutions, and social organizations to launch relevant service activities linked by agricultural IPRs, and to instruct the IPR Union of Seed Industry to carry out seed IP information sharing and assistance work. 
(59) To continue the construction plan for the technology support system on the protection of new varieties of plants, to improve the function of test institutions on new varieties of plants and their regional arrangement, and to make efforts in the construction of a world-class plant variety test system. 
(60) To continue disseminating overseas pre-warning and guidance information on IPRs to enterprises in different ways and to improve the overseas IP protection mechanism through compiling the Annual Report on Overseas IP Protection, publishing industry report on patent information analysis, providing training to enterprises on IPR protection, continuing the establishment of "IPR helpdesks for Chinese enterprises in exhibitions" in major international exhibitions, and several other ways, to guide and help Chinese businesses to handle key IP disputes in foreign-related trade, and to promote the pilot project of the overseas IPR protection center for enterprises. 
(61) To carry out periodical exchange with the US on issues related to "337 Investigation", actively organize the appraisal activities for legislative amendments on Section 337, to express the concerns of China's industry and enterprises, and to strengthen instructions on how to handle 337 investigation for enterprises who are engaged in major cases, and simultaneously, try to coordinate with all departments to give policy support and assistance for enterprises that win lawsuits concerning "337 Investigation".
(62) To promote the information construction on the protection of intangible cultural heritage, to formulate the construction plan of digitalized protection project of intangible cultural heritage, to formulate a unified standard system of digitalized intangible cultural heritage, to make an overall planning for the construction of intangible cultural heritage database, and to form a preliminary database system to serve the public. 
(63) To give a full play to the functions of collective administration organizations, industrial associations, and copyright intermediary organizations, to further regulate their market behavior, and to support their legitimate business activities, so as to create conditions for their development. 
(64) To innovate on the copyright public service methods, enhance the copyright public service capacity, and increase the quantity and improve the quality of registered works and recorded registrations of copyright contracts. 
(65) To emphasize on construction and improvement of forestry-related IP basic databases, which contain new forestry plant varieties, forestry-related patents, geographical indications and etc., and to further improve the public information platform for forestry-related IPRs, and the pre-warning mechanism for IPRs of major exporting forestry products, to initiate the China Forestry IPR Network, and support the foundation of protection unions in different forms, so as to provide service for the creation, protection, and utilization of new forestry plant varieties. 
(66) To steadily implement the Straits Cooperation Agreement of IPR Protection, so as to further enhance the cooperation across the Taiwan Straits in patents, trademarks, copyrights, new plant varieties and other areas.

(IV) Enhancing IP Education and Training and Team Building of IP Talents

(67) To encourage local governments and schools to take advantage of the disposable classes provided by the Plan for Curriculum Settings of Compulsory Education to organize educational activities on the protection of intellectual property, and to guide the teaching materials' compiling group of ideological and moral curriculum to revise the textbook in accordance with the curriculum standards on IP education. 
(68) To continue promoting the training programs of on-job master-degree education on IP laws.
(69) To strengthen orientation training and post-education for IPR judicial appraisal employees, to organize education programs on professional ethics and disciplines, and to further improve the overall quality of the team. 
(70) To further enhance the IP training for civil servants, strengthen guidance and supervision, continue to incorporate IP training in various training programs, and improve the awareness of IP protection among civil servants. 
(71) To strengthen the protection for representative heirs with the national intangible cultural heritage, to initiate the rescue documentary project for representative heirs, to ascertain subsidy funds, to formulate detailed management rules and promulgate supportive policies, and to study and formulate tuition assistance, scholarships and other incentive measures for the apprentices and heirs.
(72) To improve the training work of copyright, to organize copyright training for officials, enforcement officers, copyright owners and operators of copyright-related corporations, and to train professionals on copyright.
 (73) In accordance with the task assignment requirements of the Outline of the National Mid- and Long- Term Talent Development Plan (2010-2020), to implement the organization work of the Implementation of IPR Protection and promulgate detailed measures and means.

(V) Enhancing the Publicity Work and Intellectual Property Culture

(74) To further strengthen the publicity and report of special campaign against IPR infringements and the production and sales of counterfeited and forged commodities, to report the effective measures taken by regions and departments timely, to fight against IPR infringements and the production and sales of counterfeited and forged commodities, to enhance the development of intellectual property protection, to take full advantage of public supervision and report typical cases in the special campaign, to expose the IPR infringements and to make efforts to create a favorable climate of protecting IPR and consciously resisting against the IPR infringements and the production and sales of counterfeited and forged commodities in the society. 
(75) To strengthen the external publicity on typical intellectual property issues considering the focus of the world's attention, to fully report the improvement in intellectual property protection environment in China, to show the determination of the Chinese government to severely crack down on IPR infringements and to make the world aware of the development of China's intellectual property protection work objectively, impartially and comprehensively
 (76) To open up special page or column of IPRs on newspaper, radio, TV and other media, to publicize the work of public security agencies to fight against the IP infringements related to social well-being issues, to improve the IP awareness of the public, and to make efforts to create a favorable climate of promoting the implementation of intellectual property strategy in the society. 
(77) To deploy the publicity and education work of intellectual property legal system based on the Main Points of National Dissemination of the Law and Ruling according to Law in 2011, to continue promoting "six entries of laws" according to the requirements of the "sixth-five" law popularization and promote the intellectual property laws and regulations entering government agencies, rural areas, communities, schools, enterprises and work units. 
(78) To guide members of intellectual property alliance of seed industry to send honesty，credit and law-abiding written proposal to the whole industry, to compile publicity brochure on the protection of the new varieties of plants in accordance with the 50th anniversary of foundation of the International Union for the Protection of the New Varieties of Plants and to organize the 5th National Agricultural Intellectual Property Forum.
(79) To further promote the publicity activities on the overseas' IP protection and the IP protection issues to be noted by enterprises attending international exhibitions, to further improve the awareness of intellectual property among enterprises, to make full use of the websites including the Intellectual Property Protection in China, National Intellectual Property Strategy and other platforms for the information dissemination and publicity work of intellectual property. 
(80) To take full advantage of mass media to organize and coordinate radio and TV programs to actively promote the publicity work of the Outline of the National Intellectual Property Strategy, to make full efforts to publicize the experiences and achievements of IPR protection and special campaigns against the production and sales of counterfeited and forged commodities. 
(81) To draft and promulgate the Intellectual Property Protection in China in 2010 and the Summary of National and Local Intellectual Property Protection in 2010. 
(82) To organize the relevant volunteer work on national intellectual property protection. 
(83) To select and publish top 10 Cases and 50 typical IP cases for judicial protection in China in 2010, to publish the IPR Judicial Protection by Courts in China (2010) and issue the Annual Report on IP Cases by the Supreme People's Court (2010), to establish the Internet website titled China IPR Judgments and Decisions. 
(84) To strengthen the publicity and training work on the protection of geographical indications, to further popularize knowledge of geographical indications' protection and improve the ability to recognize the geographical indications of the society.

(VI) Expanding Foreign Exchanges and Cooperation on IP

(85) To continue to support international exchanges and cooperation in the IP field, and to further communicate on IP protection issues through high-level meetings, and bilateral and multilateral cooperation mechanism with major countries. 
(86) To organize international negotiation on "national system for access to and benefit sharing of genetic resources" under the Convention on Biological Diversity, and to study the Nagoya Protocol in depth, preparing for the conservation of species resources. 
(87) To actively participate in relevant meetings and activities on the Treaty of Protection of New Varieties of Plants, to enhance the bilateral and multilateral cooperation with the Netherlands, Germany and Japan on the protection of new varieties of plants, to make a good preparation for the East Asia Forum on Protection of New Varieties of Plants, so as to promote the technology communication and cooperation on new varieties of plants in East Asia. 
(88) To enhance the dialogue and IPR working mechanism between China, and the Untied States, EU, Japan, Russia, Brazil and Switzerland, lead the negotiation on Sino-EU and Sino-Switzerland Bilateral Cooperation Agreement on Geographical Indications, promote the bilateral economic and trade relationship, further establish the China-US IP cooperation programs, and discuss the establishment of new China-EU IP cooperation programs.
(89) To promote the program of China IP Protection Overseas Promotion Publicity Week in the US, EU and Japan. 
(90) To lead the participation in the conference of TRIPs Council of WTO and the APEC Intellectual Property Expert Group Meeting, to actively engage in discussion and negotiation on various IP issues, and to carry out IP information exchanges. 
(91) To coordinate and engage in IP negotiations of free trade area and to fulfill the obligations concerning IP chapter or articles in the agreements that have come into force. 
(92) To organize the international seminar on pharmaceutical data protection system and discuss on the implementation strategies of related system on pharmaceutical test data protection. 
(93) To continue to dispatch participants to the conferences of WIPO, APEC and WTO, to continue to follow the process of the Standing Committee of Trademark, Industrial Designs, and Geographical Indications and Madrid Legal Development Working Group Meetings, and to actively utilize international rules to protect China's trademark rights and interests.
(94) To enhance the exchange and collaboration with WIPO, Asia Broadcasting Union (ABU) and other international organizations, and to actively participate in the formulation of the WIPO Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations. 
(95) To further complete the follow-up work of China-US Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade related to copyright affairs, organize the China-US Internet Copyright Conference, and promote the implementation of the Memorandum of Strategic Cooperation on Copyright between China and the United States; To further promote and implement the 2010-2011 Work Plan of China-UK Memorandum of Understanding on Copyright, to implement the relevant work under the framework of China-Japan and China-South Korea Copyright Cooperation Memorandum, and to actively participate in the relevant work of China-Australia, China-Peru and China-Costa Rica free trade area negotiation and IP working group meeting of China-Brazil and China-Russian economic and trade committees. 
(96) To lead the participation of international negotiation and discussion on issues like development agenda, protection of traditional knowledge and folklore and reform of Patent Cooperation Treaty under WIPO framework, and continue to promote the balanced development of international IP regime.
(97) To deepen the bilateral patent cooperation and exchanges with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Australia, Mongolia and other countries, and to implement the bilateral IP cooperation agreements. 
(98) To thoroughly implement the Memorandum of Understanding between China and ASEAN Countries on IP Cooperation, to expand the scope of cooperation, and to hold the China-ASEAN IP Seminar. 
(99) To further promote and expand the cooperation with African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI) and African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), and strive to open the new bilateral relationship with IP agencies of major African countries. 
(100) To continue the deepen the international cooperation in the area of geographical indications, to make efforts to achieve the information sharing among the main geographical indication partners, and to protect the legitimate interests of both domestic or foreign right owners of geographical indications under the principle of equity and reciprocation.