Shanghai works on improving intellectual property protection

Shanghai has been working on improving its intellectual property protection by reducing patent approval time and enhancing judicial protection.

A recent beneficiary was Wang Kai, a returned overseas postdoctoral researcher, and his start-up team who obtained the patent licensing notification of their tumor DNA sequencing technology this June, around 70 days after they submitted the patent application.

Wang was amazed by the fast speed of the notification, because "generally, it takes about three years to examine and approve a patent in China as well as in European and American countries."

He Ying, director of China (Pudong) Intellectual Property Protection Center, explained that the fast approval is attributed to a green channel the center carried out this February.

Rui Wenbiao, deputy director of Shanghai Intellectual Property Bureau, said that the center can reduce the approval period of patent for invention from three years to three months, a patent for a utility model from eight months to one month, and design patent from six months to a week.

Moreover, Shanghai is looking to strictly crack down on and increase the compensation for the infringement of intellectual property rights.

One example of this is the case of Shanghai Intellectual Property Court adjudicating that a Shanghai-based auto engineering company should pay compensation of 15 million ($2.17 million) yuan to a software development company for its infringement of software copyright earlier this year.

Such a high amount of compensation clearly shows the court's determination to crack down on the infringement of intellectual property right.

By the end of June, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court had accepted and heard 6,561 intellectual property cases and concluded 5,849 cases.

The court will continue to improve its judicial system to better protect intellectual property, said Li Shulan, vice president of the court.

The China (Pudong) Intellectual Property Protection Center is unveiled in Shanghai on July 25, 2017. [Photo/The Paper]