Shanghai unveils plan to strengthen IP environment

Shanghai on Thursday published a guideline for the city's intellectual property development from 2021 to 2035 as well as an IP protection and utilization plan for the next five years.

Vice mayor of Shanghai Chen Qun said that the city will strive to become an international highland for IP protection by 2025, and a global city with comprehensive systems and good environment for IP utilization by 2035.

According to the plan, the city will aim to achieve 10 targets within the next five years. These targets include raising the number of high-value patents per 10,000 people to more than 30, raising the annual copyrights registration figure to over 450,000, and increasing the applications for international trademark under the Madrid Protocol by 1,400.

Chen said the guideline and the plan will bolster high-quality development as the protection and utilization of IP will create values for  key industries such as integrated circuits, biomedicine and artificial intelligence.

Rui Wenbiao, director general of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration, said that key tasks for the next step will focus on IP protection in the city's digital transformation.

"We will study the rights of data and models of IP protection for the data industry, and establish rules to protect IP in terms of the gathering, exchange and use of data," he said.

Rui added that the administration will also make IP protection more convenient by building an integrated portal for legal and arbitration services.