As china’s intellectual property rights enters an era of high stock and new scientific and technological competition intensifys, intellectual property rights are shifting from a “hull of protection” of innovation to an institutional tool that underpins key technological imperatives, promotes the transformation of results, creates industrial competitiveness, and participates in international rule-making。
The “fifty five” plan for the protection and use of intellectual property (hereinafter referred to as the “plan”) recently issued by the state council defines the objectives, priorities and specific projects for the implementation of intellectual property during the “fifty five” period. The plan also makes clear the need to improve algorithms, artificial intelligence products and intellectual property protection rules related to platform economic development, as well as to explore the construction of rules for data intellectual property protection, strengthen research on open source intellectual property protocol rules and support the building of domestic open source communities。
In contrast to the “xiv5” national plan for the protection and application of intellectual property rights, the plan has several new expressions, including “enhanced supply of intellectual property for the development of new quality productivity” and “accelerated growth and development of the intellectual property factor market”。
“the clearest signal of planning is that the policy role of intellectual property has changed.” shaw yudan, a researcher at the institute of strategic science and technology consulting of the chinese academy of sciences, who has long studied intellectual property rights, told the first financial journalist that, in the past, intellectual property had been discussed, with more emphasis on “protecting innovation.” the plan, of course, continues to focus on protection, but it is not so much about the intensity of protection as it is about putting intellectual property rights in science, technology and innovation, industrial development, market pricing and international competition, and more about whether these rights can produce market values。
Highlight the market value of intellectual property
According to the plan, by 2030 our combined intellectual property rights (ipr) capabilities and international competitiveness will have increased, intellectual property protections will have become stronger, intellectual property market values will have become more visible, intellectual property public services will have become better quality, integrated intellectual property systems will have become more efficient, international cooperation in intellectual property rights will have deepened and decisive progress will have been made in the building of a strong intellectual property state。
The plan also sets out a number of related tasks in the area of “increased market value of intellectual property rights”. “this means that over the next five years more emphasis will be placed on the ability of iprs to be identified, priced and validated by the market.” choyuda said。
The plan not only proposes to accelerate the nurturing and development of the ipr factor market, explicitly explore the publication of ip transaction price statistics, but also strengthen the monitoring of the quality and transformation benefits of related patents。
“the logic of evaluating intellectual property rights has changed.” choyuda explained to the first financial reporter how it was easier to look at “how many rights” in the past, such as the number of patent applications, authorizations, trademark registrations, and the plan’s greater concern was whether those rights could form a market value: whether they could be converted into products, whether they could support industry value addition, whether they could finance, whether they could license transactions, and whether they could compete internationally。
This shift will lead to corresponding changes in local governments, enterprises and scientific institutions. For local governments, according to chaudan, the policy focus will shift from simple incentive applications to building transformation platforms, financial services, price discovery mechanisms and industrial applications; for start-ups, intellectual property rights are not just legal assets, but are also important tools for financing, competition, access to the sea and standard layout; and for higher education and scientific institutions, patent applications will need to focus more on industry prospects and transformation possibilities before patenting, not just for quantitative indicators。
At the same time, the plan's reference to “increasing the supply of intellectual property for the development of new quality productivity” is also noteworthy. The plan proposes that high-value patents and patent portfolios be nurtured around key core technologies in the focus area. High-quality copyright and copyright products developed around basic software. Strengthening patent layout and ipr management for major sti projects. Strengthen patent-oriented r & d management for major applications-type scientific and technological tasks. Strengthen the interface between intellectual property analysis and technology and promote the deeper integration of intellectual property management with the management of priority equipment projects。
According to choyudan, this suggests that intellectual property rights are no longer merely rights-based protection after innovation has taken shape, but are being put ahead of major science and technology tasks, key core technology barriers and industrial layouts. Its policy role has moved from “protecting results” to “supporting supply”。
Emerging areas such as focus on artificial intelligence
At present, new and emerging industries, such as artificial intelligence, and future industries are developing rapidly, creating new requirements for a sound intellectual property protection system. According to publicly available data, by the end of june this year 16. 5 per cent of the total number of patents for effective inventions in the new generation of information technologies, such as artificial intelligence, the internet, cloud computing, big data, etc。
The plan focuses on emerging areas with a number of tasks, emphasizing the improvement of intellectual property protection regimes in emerging areas and protection rules in specific areas, the provision of key core technical barriers to services, and enabling industrial innovation. Over the next five years, intellectual property rights will be shaped by rules for participation in new technologies, new industries and new markets。
“the `xivv' plan already refers to the protection of new business practices in new areas, as well as to data intellectual property rights, open sources, etc., but the plan more specifically identifies the subject of the rules.” says choyuda。
The plan not only explicitly seeks to improve algorithms, artificial intelligence products and intellectual property protection rules relevant to platform economic development, but also proposes to explore the construction of rules for the protection of intellectual property rights in data, to strengthen research on open-source intellectual property protocol rules and to support the building of domestic open-source communities。
However, as schaudan also pointed out, these rules cannot be applied overnight, “in the new and emerging fields of technology, the complexity of business models and the difficulty of moving forward”. He mentioned that, in the case of artificial intelligence, the difficulty lies in the boundaries of the rights of artificial intelligence products. “the question arises as to whether the creation of content is protected, to whom the rights are vested, how the relationship between the training data and the output results is determined and how the platform, model developers and users share responsibility.”
The difficulty in constructing open-source rules is how to balance open innovation with commercial compliance. He said: “enterprises make extensive use of open source codes, but licensing obligations, compliance reviews, and supply chain security often fail to keep pace. The open source is not so simple as `free use', but a set of conditional rules for technical collaboration.”
The more realistic path, according to choudan, is to develop operational rules in priority areas and move forward progressively through case studies, pilots, industry norms and international negotiations。
Internationalization will be a major development incremental
One notable change in the plan is the increase in foreign involvement and the increase in disputes management, risk control and advocacy assistance。
In line with the overall requirements of the plan, international cooperation and competition in the field of intellectual property rights will be integrated over the next five years. The plan provides for enhanced monitoring and early warning of foreign intellectual property trade investigations, litigation and other disputes, building a database of foreign intellectual property disputes, explicitly encouraging insurance agencies to conduct foreign intellectual property-related insurance operations in accordance with market-based principles, and supporting enterprises to establish mutual funds for the protection and defence of foreign intellectual property rights。
“this suggests that foreign intellectual property work is no longer merely a cooperative exchange, but has started to address specific risk scenarios such as trade investigations, overseas litigation, cross-border electricians, exhibition rights defence, and business access to the sea, with the external competitive attributes of intellectual property rights being more clearly articulated.” according to choudan, the plan's formulation of international intellectual property rights is based on a consistent tone of cooperation, which clearly increases the weight of external risk, foreign disputes and competition responses, moving from a focus on cooperation to a combination of cooperation and competition。
Internationalization will probably be a significant addition to the development of china's intellectual property rights during the “155” period。
At a press conference on the theme “fifty-five” on 29 july this year, the deputy director of the national intellectual property agency, ri wenzheng, stated that the “fifty-five” period would place greater emphasis on the integration of the intellectual property system with economic and social development, with a clear focus on the whole chain of intellectual property creation, protection, application, management, services and international cooperation。
“in the language of the past, intellectual property work usually revolved around the creation, protection, use, management and servicing of five segments, and international cooperation emerged more as a complementary element. This time, the explicit and sixth segment of `international cooperation' implies a substantial rise in the place of international cooperation in policy narratives.” according to choyuda, internationalization was no longer an external increment to intellectual property work but a strategic variable embedded throughout the chain。
