National intellectual property awareness week
On 26 april 2025, the 25th world intellectual property day, the national intellectual property awareness week will be held from 20 to 26 april on the theme “intellectual property and artificial intelligence”. During this period, the shaanxi department of intellectual property rights will join forces to carry out a campaign on the theme “intellectual property law, san qin plays innovation drives the strongest voices of development”, to disseminate the intellectual property culture concept, to raise awareness in society about respect for and protection of intellectual property rights, and to create an atmosphere conducive to high-quality construction of a model intellectual property authority in the west。
What are the main elements of intellectual property rights
Intellectual property is the legal title of the exclusive right of a civil subject to creative intellectual outcomes. These include, inter alia:
01
Copyright and neighbouring rights
Copyright, also known as copyright, refers to the personal and property rights of authors of literary, artistic and scientific works and their subjects in accordance with the law. Neighbourhood rights are referred to in copyright law as “rights relating to copyright”。
02
Patent rights
This means that natural persons, legal persons or other organizations have, in accordance with the law, exclusive authority over inventions, practical novelty and visual design for a certain period of time。
03
Trademark rights
That is to say, the rights of the trademark registrant or successor to the right to register the trademark within the legal period。
04
Right to business secrets
That is, the exclusive right of civil subjects to technical or operational information that is a commercial secret under the law。
05
Right to new varieties of plants
The right to exclusive use of the varieties authorized by the unit or individual who has finished breeding is provided for by law。
06
Design rights for integrated circuit maps
That is, the legal exclusive right of natural persons, legal persons or other organizations to the design of integrated circuit maps。
What are the legal features of intellectual property rights
01
Geographical
Except in the case of an international convention or a bilateral or multilateral agreement, rights acquired under the laws of a state can only be valid in the territory of that state and are protected by that state law。
02
Exclusive
Monopoly is exclusive. The proprietary nature of intellectual property rights is expressed in the following:
01
More than two identical intellectual property rights cannot coexist over the same intellectual product。
02
Subjects of law have the right to the exclusive use of intellectual property, and no one may use the intellectual property of a person without the law or the consent of the person entitled to it。
03
Timescale
The law of each country provides for a separate period of time for intellectual property, after which the right automatically terminates。
What's a geographical sign
According to the instrument for the protection of geographical signing products, a geographical marker product is a product originating in a specific geographical area and having a quality, reputation or other characteristics that are intrinsically dependent on the natural, human factor of the site. This includes cultivated and farmed products from the region; raw materials come from all or part of the region and are produced and processed according to specific processes in the region。
01
Requirements for geographical indications products
Geographical marker products should be authentic, geographical, specific and relevant。
Reality is that the name of the geographical marker product has been used continuously and is widely known. Geographicality is that the entire or main production chain of the geographical marker product should occur within a limited geographical area. Specificity is the product's more visible quality characteristics, particular reputations or other characteristics. Relevance is that the specificity of the product is determined by the natural and human factors of a given geographical area。
02
Duties of the applicant
There are some differences in the requirements for applicants under the geographic marker product protection (git) regulations, which were in force in 2005, and the geographical marker product protection (git) scheme, which was in force in 2024:
Provisions: submitted by an applicant for the protection of geographical marker products designated by the local people's government or by associations and enterprises designated by the people's government; scheme: submitted by the people's government at the county level or above, or by a representative social group designated by it (hereinafter referred to as the applicant)。
The scheme adds a number of duties to the applicant: 1 and 18: “the applicant shall develop a national standard sample according to the product category, in conjunction with the development of national, local and group standards for geographical marker products. Article 23, paragraph 2: “the applicant shall take measures to regulate, inter alia, the use of geographical indications in the name of the product and in the quality of the product's characteristics.”3 and 26: “where the requirements for the protection of geographical indications products require change, an application for change shall be submitted to the state intellectual property agency.”
03
What about the applicant's vacancy
In the light of the regulations, once the geographical marker product has been protected, the applicant has completed his mission and his subsequent administration is irrelevant. The business as an applicant was also a previous matter, and after 2024 the business could not be an applicant. But the scheme gives the applicant additional managerial responsibilities, and what happens if the applicant fails to perform? Read the scheme carefully, according to article 18, applicants are merely cooperating and standards can be established without their cooperation with the local government; the management of product quality and the logo is also the responsibility of the government function under article 23, and the management of the applicant's gaps does not affect the performance of the functions of the government function; and the change in the protection of the geographical marker product requires the stamping of the applicant under article 26 does not affect the applicant's interests。
