10 May China’s nationwide campaign to protect foreign companies’ IP rights
Even though China’s market is the biggest market in the world, and China has one of the world’s largest economies, foreign companies are very careful when deciding to expand their business in China because of the concerns about the protection of their IP rights.
This is why in 2017 the China State Council published the Circular on Several Measures to Boost the Growth of Foreign Investment. The circular announced measures to ensure the growth and raise the quality of foreign investment by creating an environment that is more law-based, internationalised and convenient for foreign investors.
The measures include improving the protection of IP rights so as to encourage inward foreign direct investment.
This is the first time that China has started a nationwide campaign to protect foreign companies’ IP rights. The plan states that it will “severely crack down on violations and offenses such as the infringement of IP rights owned by foreign-invested enterprises”.
From September to December 2017, the plan urged the 12 national departments to crack down on violations that infringe trade secrets, trademarks, patent rights and copyrights. It also called for greater efforts to tackle infringement and counterfeiting offences, as well as the import and export of goods infringing IP rights. This includes intensifying efforts to protect well-known trademarks, geographical indications and foreign-related trademarks.
The State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) will also investigate and punish behaviours such as malicious (bad faith) registration and free- riding of renowned brands, and will clamp down on serious infringements and counterfeiting strongly.
Moving forward, it will be interesting to see how the desired outcome of establishing a good image of China’s IP rights protection actually plays out in an improved IP landscape and the foreign investors’ perception of the Chinese market.
The IP community considers these measures to be steps in the right direction and it is hoped that there will be further good news in the first quarter of 2018.