SZ makes breakthrough in IPR protection

Writer: Zhang Yu  |  Editor: Holly Wang  |  From: Shenzhen Daily  |  Updated: 2020-07-17

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. To mark the occasion, we are publishing a series of reports celebrating the city’s achievements in different aspects over the past four decades.

Shenzhen ranked first among 156 sub-provincial and prefecture-level cities in China in the performance appraisal of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in 2019, according to the results published by the National Intellectual Property Administration.

The city occupied the first place in terms of patent applications, patent authorization, growth rate of patent authorization, maintenance rate of valid invention patents for more than five years and patent applications under the PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) in 2019, Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported Thursday.

The Shenzhen Intellectual Property Rights Protection Center. File photo

In particular, Shenzhen’s PCT applications accounted for about 30.74 percent of the total number of PCT applications in China, ranking first in the country for 16 consecutive years.

Compared with other international innovation-driven cities, Shenzhen’s PCT applications were second only to Tokyo and way ahead of New York last year.

As of the end of 2019, Shenzhen had filed 138,534 valid invention patents. There were 106.3 invention patents per 10,000 people in the city, eight times the national average.

The achievements are a testament to Shenzhen’s determination and efforts in safeguarding intellectual property rights. And with increasing awareness and improving enforcement of laws, the city is making headway in promoting the construction of an IPR protection mechanism.

On March 1, 2019, Shenzhen rolled out regulations on intellectual property protection, making exploration and innovation in the establishment of a compliance commitment system, the appointment of administrative law enforcement technical investigators, and the construction of a credit-breaching punishment mechanism.

The city also tightened its punishment for intentional infringement of IPR by adopting an amendment to the IPR protection regulations June 30 this year.

The amendment has clarified six categories of serious cases of intentional intellectual property infringement and said that heavier punishments related to the cases shall be given within the range of punitive damages stipulated by the law.

Shenzhen has also been active in providing guidance and assistance services to help “going-out” companies better understand and observe IPR laws and rules when they operate overseas, according to the Daily.