Promoting intellectual property protection and china working with the world
On 12 september 2024, qinghua university law school hosted a guest from a long distance — the director-general of the world intellectual property organization, deng hun sen. As a guest of qinghua's distinguished overseas lecturer, deng hun sen gave a presentation entitled “the power of intellectual property in the era of frontier technology”. Also on that day, the world intellectual property organization (wipo) and tsinghua university's joint master's programme on “intellectual property and innovation policies” attracted the first students。
According to deng hun sen, intellectual property has now become a vehicle for global innovation and economic development. He noted that china had become a leader in industrial property claims。
President xi had said that the protection of intellectual property rights was the protection of innovation. “the country is now deeply engaged in the implementation of innovative-driven development strategies and intellectual property-powering strategies, and there is an urgent need for a large number of high-level intellectual property talent.” zhou guangcheng, dean of the university of qinghua law school, said. At present, china has established a relatively well-developed system of high-level intellectual property talent development. The faculty of law of the university of qinghua has established a master of laws in intellectual property and a phd project. In order to further enhance the internationalization of talent development, the university of tsinghua and the world intellectual property organization (wipo) signed an agreement in november 2023 to establish a new joint master's programme on intellectual property and innovation policy at the university of tsinghua。
“this is a project for teaching in all english, for global enrolment, aimed at developing high-level intellectual property talent with a global perspective and a national context.” zhou guangcheng zhou zhou zhou zhou zhou zhou zhou zhou zhou zhou. According to his presentation, the project will bring together leading teachers from leading universities, including the university of chinghua, the world intellectual property organization, transnational corporations and law firms to develop good international intellectual property talent for china and the world。
Rapid improvement of intellectual property protection systems
As of the end of 2023, there were 4. 9906 million active patents for inventions in china, and 46. 1464 million valid trademarks. According to the white paper on the status of intellectual property protection in china, published by the national intellectual property administration in 2003, social satisfaction with intellectual property protection in china rose to 82. 04 points in 2023, a record high. At the same time, china insists on the same protection of intellectual property rights (iprs) of domestic and foreign enterprises, with foreign applicants holding more than 900,000 patents for valid inventions in china and registering more than 2. 1 million valid trademarks。
“as a whole, china has been at the forefront of intellectual property protection, with patent applications, trademark registrations, etc. There have also been significant breakthroughs in some areas of science, technology and innovation, such as wind, solar, electric vehicles, ultra-high voltage transmission and artificial intelligence.” choi guobin, director of the research centre on intellectual property law, faculty of law, qinghua university, said. He said that many people at the international level were very interested in and encouraged by china's intellectual property protection system and the role played by various government policies to stimulate innovation in national science and technology development。
In the context of china's continuing new breakthroughs in science and technology, the joint master's training programme on intellectual property and innovation policy is very attractive to many international students. Choi guobin noted that the legal system for intellectual property protection in developed countries such as europe and the united states is relatively well developed, but that china is among the world's leaders in the role of government in promoting innovation。
China's legislation on the protection of intellectual property rights began in the 1980s and now has a more complete legal system. By the end of 2022, there were 27 intellectual property courts, 4 intellectual property courts and 70 national intellectual property protection centres. More than 540,000 new intellectual property cases were received by the national courts in 2023。
Choi guobin believes that both domestic and foreign factors have contributed to the rapid establishment and improvement of china's intellectual property protection system. “reforming the post-opening influx of foreign investment requires a system of intellectual property protection to maintain a competitive market order, which objectively promotes the establishment of the system. Today, with china becoming the world's manufacturing hub, domestic innovative enterprises are rapidly emerging and their need for innovation protection is growing and their systems are being improved.” he further noted that in raising awareness of intellectual property protection in society as a whole, “governments play a very important leading role, such as incentivizing enterprises to innovate, patenting and constantly raising awareness of trademarks or copyright protection”
Choi guobin believes that, in addition to national education and awareness-raising, there are still few judicial cases, as well as strict enforcement and the greater cost of violating the law, which can have a greater social impact and thus effectively foster public awareness of intellectual property protection. In 2023, the national courts applied punitive damages in 319 cases, an increase of 117 per cent over the same period, and awarded compensation in the amount of rmb 1. 16 billion, or 3. 5 times the same amount. Among them, the intellectual property tribunal of the supreme people's court applied punitive damages in eight cases, reflecting the strengthening of the judicial protection of intellectual property rights in priority areas, emerging industries and key core technologies, the constant promotion of priority industrial development in the country and the judicial orientation to protect science, technology and innovation。
On 14 june 2024, the intellectual property tribunal of the supreme people's court issued its final judgement in the intellectual property dispute concerning gili v. Wilma's claim for $2. 1 billion in sky price, which ordered the wilma party to cease immediately the disclosure, use, permission to use the technology for the application of the new energy chassis involved in the interest, as well as the 12 sets of vehicle chassis parts and mathematical technology secrets, and to pay compensation for the economic losses of the interest amounting to nearly $640 million. This has become the most domestically awarded intellectual property tort dispute to date。
Innovation-driven development
It is called “intellectual property and innovation policy”, so innovation policy is another focus of this master's programme. “we want students to know not only how the intellectual property system works, but also how the innovation system accompanying intellectual property works. There are a range of government policies behind this, such as how to promote advanced technologies.” choi guobin, for example, there is still a gap between china and the united states in some areas of basic scientific research, and some of the frontier technological inventions are not as fast as possible, “but if we can put in place a system that will allow for the subsequent diffusion of technology and the rapid and efficient commercialization of knowledge, we can achieve great competitiveness.”
In many cases, intellectual property protection and markets alone are not sufficient incentives for innovation, which requires national industrial policies to encourage enterprise development technologies through mechanisms such as tax subsidies. “china has done very well in this regard, and many western countries are very interested. As a result, the project also provided an opportunity for international students to understand the operational mechanisms of industrial policy in china. Choi guobin says。
Without clear market success expectations or relatively small market sizes, smes often find it difficult to attract sufficient investment. Choi guobin believes that this would have had a faster market-based effect if governments were willing to take risks, such as providing office conditions or tax breaks for the enterprises concerned, or even designing clusters of industries, bringing up- and down-stream industries together through policies that would allow business-to-business interaction. For example, in the form of government investments, embot forms an industrial cluster of new energy vehicles and an integrated circuit-wide chain。
“we place special emphasis on students' understanding of the whole innovation system. For example, there is a course on the economics of innovation and policy, which is in fact an interdisciplinary one that not only imparts students knowledge of the economics of the innovative activities of social organizations, but also describes the incentives for innovation in government-related industrial policies, allowing students to operate from a broader perspective, i. E. From a macro-level perspective of macroeconomics and state governance, rather than just the micro-levels of specific laws or economic performance。
The project also includes more cutting-edge courses such as data and ai governance. “data addresses issues of personal privacy, national security, etc., and issues of governance and compliance in the use of data and ai are addressed in the course. We will work with lawyers who support the microsoft ai team to ensure both the substantive and cutting edge of the course, as well as some theoretical issues.” choi guobin said。
International perspective and global competence
The intellectual property and innovation policy project also aims to develop the global competencies of students to enable them to participate in international rule-making in the future. “the entire curriculum places more emphasis on students' in-depth understanding of some of the core issues in the field than on the development of substantive skills in one area alone. We want to develop students ' deep thinking skills and sensitivity to social realities. Choi guobin says。
The world intellectual property organization (wipo) also plays the role of an international organization in this project, using its experience in international intellectual property protection to assist in curriculum development. “they will help us to invite the world's senior experts to build the course, and they will fund a number of leading global scholars to teach in qinghua each year. In addition, scholarships and internships are offered to students, which are important incentives for students.” choi guobin stated that the objective of the project was to create a pole for talent development in the field of intellectual property worldwide and to prepare future leaders for government agencies and international organizations. As a result, the project's teaching staff came from all over the world, including teachers from american universities such as washington university, berkeley university of california and scholars from germany, singapore and other countries. Among the foreign lecturers of the project in 2024 was the renowned professor william fisher of harvard university law school。
“we want to build an international open-learning platform through which the world's top intellectual property scholars are brought together and where academic discussions and exchanges take place, in addition to supporting the curriculum.” project secretary general hong yan said。
International exchanges on intellectual property rights at the faculty of law of the university of qinghua have been active. A forum has been set up with oxford university and the national university of singapore, organized by three schools on an annual rotational basis; in addition, it has been working with the university of california at berkeley for many years. In europe, the faculty of law of the university of tsinghua and the european top intellectual property think tank, the map institute in germany, have continued to exchange cooperation, including mutual meetings, organization of events, exchange of lectures among scholars, etc。
On such a world-class intellectual property exchange platform, the world intellectual property organization (wipo)-csinghua university joint master's programme on intellectual property and innovation policies hopes to attract the world's best young and middle-aged scholars interested in intellectual property research. “we want to foster the advancement of global intellectual property protection and innovation policies by developing high-end intellectual property talent with a global perspective, a humanistic and interdisciplinary context.” zhou luang zhou zhou zhou zhou zhou zhou zhou qian。
