In recent years, new problems and contradictions in the area of patent protection have emerged as a result of technological developments and increased competition in the market, and patent protection has faced problems of proof, length of time, low compensation, high cost and low efficiency, which has to some extent inhibited the innovation dynamism of innovation subjects and the urgent need to further improve the legal environment for patent protection。
From 15 to 19 april, the deputy commissioner of the standing committee of the national people's congress, jibingzun, led a team to guangdong to conduct a patent law enforcement inspection. This is illustrated by the inspection of the joo hagrid electric group. Photography/ lui to the sea
As an important law for protecting the legitimate rights and interests of patent holders, encouraging inventions and promoting scientific and technological progress and economic and social development, since 1 april 1985, the patent law has seen a rapid increase in the number of patent enforcement cases and increasing patent protection。
However, recent research by the national intellectual property agency shows that 30 per cent of patent holders in the country have suffered from tort disputes, and only 10 per cent of them have taken measures to defend their rights, and patent protection remains a weak link in intellectual property protection。
During the period from april to may this year, the standing committee of the national people's congress, in its inspection of the application of patent laws in various provinces, also found that, in recent years, new problems and contradictions in the area of patent protection have emerged as a result of technological developments and increased competition in the market, and that patent protection has faced difficulties of proof, length of time, low compensation, high cost and low efficiency, which has somewhat inhibited the innovation dynamism of innovation subjects and the urgent need to further improve the legal environment for patent protection。
Increasing enforcement of patent protection
Legislation is being implemented. An important element of this patent law enforcement inspection is to urge law enforcement authorities to increase enforcement of patent law to protect the legitimate interests of patent holders。
In field research, the enforcement inspection unit has learned of a series of innovative initiatives to strengthen the enforcement and judicial protection of patent administration that have accompanied changes in patent law. Guangdong is at the forefront of reform and opening up, with a more developed economy, a repository of high-tech industries and one of the most typical provinces for intellectual property protection。
“the application of patent law in guangdong is good and the work is solid and productive.” the deputy director of the national people's congress, yao, led the law enforcement inspection team to guangdong shortly before its establishment to examine the application of the patent law. He informed the journalist about the relatively good climate of intellectual property protection in guangdong province, the various measures taken by local governments to stimulate patent creation, the increasing number of patents and the rising quality of patents. As an example, the government department of guangdong province has actively explored new models of patent administration enforcement, established six intellectual property rights assistance centres, established the first comprehensive industrial intellectual property rights fast-track centre in the town of sino-shangou, and created a platform for one-stop, fast-track intellectual property rights enforcement。
The judicial authorities of guangdong province are seriously engaged in the adjudication of patent cases, innovative ideas and judgements in legal proceedings, such as patents and standards, which regulate the market behaviour of enterprises. There are eight provincial mid-level people's courts with first instance jurisdiction in patent cases and special intellectual property courts。
The province of liaoning, china's old industrial base in the north-east, has made comprehensive planning for the enforcement of patent administration and assistance in the defence of rights throughout the province. The law enforcement inspection unit of the standing committee of the national people's congress visited liaoning and observed that liaoning province had developed a three-year programme of action for patent protection “sword protection” in liaoning province, which had enhanced the normative, serious and unified nature of administrative enforcement. The strengthening of the administrative enforcement force, the in-depth development of patent administrative enforcement, the timely prosecution of a number of tort cases by prosecution authorities and courts, the strengthening of judicial protection of intellectual property rights and the effective maintenance of a competitive market environment。
The achievements in patent protection in zhejiang, the patent province, also deserve attention. As one of the most active provinces in the development of e-commerce, the standing committee of the national people's congress of the people's republic of china's law enforcement inspection unit has learned that zhejiang, in particular, has increased the regulation of infringement of intellectual property rights in the areas of circulation and networking, strengthened patent protection in the area of e-commerce, and explored with the ali baba and the botel network the establishment of a linkage between patent tort processing mechanisms in the field of e-commerce。
In 2013, the zhejiang intellectual property system handled 595 patent disputes, the second largest in the country. As of december 2012, civil cases of intellectual property in the first instance before the people's courts of zhejiang province had an annual average of 75 per cent withdrawn by mediation, which is far higher than the national average and the average of zhejiang province civil and commercial cases. It is known that in the january 2014 report of the international intellectual property index of the united states chamber of commerce, our patent portion of intellectual property for the protection of the environment is ranked ninth out of 25 countries, ahead of other middle-income countries。
Patent protection
“there is, however, a large gap between patent protection, in particular patent protection, and the legitimate market benefits.” while acknowledging the achievements, yao jianh told journalists that many of the law enforcement inspections revealed that patent protections were difficult to prove, long-term, low-compensation and ineffective, and that patent litigation also faced awkward situations such as “win the case, lose the market”, “win the case, lose the money”。
In zhejiang's law enforcement inspections, a number of enterprises, university research institutes and patent offices, law firms and government departments presented the same information to the inspection team. They state that in patent infringement proceedings, it is difficult for rights holders to have access to relevant evidence, such as proceeds of violations, held by the infringer; in patent infringement proceedings involving the manufacture of processes, intermediate products, the right holder cannot obtain evidence relating to the violation directly, but only through, inter alia, the posting of a representative inside the production site of the infringer; the standards applicable to the preservation of evidence in the courts are not uniform; and there is an increasing number of patent infringement in the field of electronic commerce, and electronic evidence is time-barred, susceptible to tampering and particularly difficult to obtain evidence。
At the same time, “due to the excessive periodicity of patent tort proceedings, and as patent tort proceedings are delayed, the value of the patent is declining, making it difficult to stop the violation in time and obtain adequate compensation”. Zhejiang province is generally considered to have low levels of compensation for patent tort actions, higher costs of litigation, inadequate enforcement of sentences ordering cessation of violations, and difficulties in effectively sanctioning malicious violations。
“some enterprises have invested almost all of them in scientific research and development in order to achieve the autonomy of core technological property.” in the case of patent advocacy, the industry has indicated that the market is becoming increasingly competitive and that the ability to innovate autonomously has become an instrument of competition for enterprises, directly related to their competitiveness within the industry. The fact that firms have worked so hard to develop technologies that other firms can steal without effort, and that the cost of litigation is high, seriously discourages innovation。
In addition, there are similar problems in patent administrative protection, where the enforcement inspection unit has found insufficient enforcement of patent administrative protection, lack of jurisdiction to adjudicate patent infringement, failure to deter abuse promptly and effectively and to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of patent holders; inadequate sanctions for group abuse, repeated abuse and chain abuse, and lack of the necessary active powers of prosecution. In her view, to address the high cost of patent protection, representatives of the national people's congress (npc), who participated in liaoning's patent law enforcement inspection, the administrative protection of patents must be strengthened in accordance with the law and the advantages of simple, fast and efficient patent administration must be fully realized. At the same time, she indicated that there was a need to increase initiative and predictability in the fight against patent abuse, to insist on combining prevention with prevention, treatment of symptoms and root causes, day-to-day law enforcement with special treatment, to expand the scope of joint sectoral and cross-regional enforcement, to work with patent dispute management offices and to further strengthen administrative and judicial protection of intellectual property。
Sound patent laws to protect the environment
The patent system is an important support for the development path driven by innovation and for china's economic upgrading. It was understood that the standing committee of the national people's congress had included changes to the patent law in a project such as the five-year legislative plan。
As a result, it has become the focus of this law enforcement inspection to address the “rights-based dilemmas” that patent holders in general and small and medium-sized enterprises in particular are currently reflecting, at the grass-roots level and in practice, with a wide range of inputs and suggestions, to further improve the patent legal framework to protect the environment and to unleash the incentives for innovation in enterprises。
“the process of revision of patent laws and related regulations should be accelerated in order to meet the needs of economic and social development.” in the course of law enforcement inspections, many relevant government departments and businesses have strongly called for amendments that would increase the level of compensation for patent infringement and explicitly place the direct and indirect costs of defending rights on the infringer. Shorten the review and review cycle of patent avoidance. (c) reduce the burden of proof on patent holders, strengthen the administrative enforcement powers of patents in a modest manner, give enforcement powers to the county authorities that regulate patent work, improve the efficiency and quality of patent infringement cases and enhance the protection of patent rights. “the strict protection of patent rights is an important aspect of a sound modern property rights regime, a necessary safeguard for a level playing field in the market and a strict protection of intangible patent rights, as is the strict protection of tangible property rights.” the law enforcement inspection unit of the standing committee of the national people's congress stressed that the advantages of parallel administrative and judicial protection should be further developed and that patent administrative enforcement and judicial protection should be strengthened across the board. It is recommended that long-term mechanisms for patent protection be developed, that enforcement of patent administration be strengthened and that the enforcement of patent administration be enhanced; and that intellectual property courts be established as soon as possible to enhance the capacity to hear intellectual property cases。
In addition, in order to strengthen research and response to patent infringement under the new environment, new technologies and new market practices such as e-commerce, the inspectors recommend that the legal obligations and responsibilities of e-commerce platform providers in patent infringement complaints be properly defined. At the same time, the mechanisms for overseas protection and defence of intellectual property rights have been improved to provide the necessary support and safeguards for enterprises to “go out”。
Finally, yao jian-yu stated that good patent protection should be done with more energy and energy in the administrative and judicial protection of patents, for example by increasing penalties for violations, thus further regulating the competition order in the market; exploring how to obtain evidence quickly in the course of enforcement, how judicial proceedings can be simple and expeditious, and how to innovate new models of patent administration. "there's a lot of work we can do next."
