The 2012 National Scientific and Digital Publishing Management Working Conference kicked off in Changsha. It is the first annual management working conference held since the General Administration of Press and Publication of the People's Republic of China set up the scientific and digital publishing unit in 2008. The conference pointed out that recent years have witnessed a rapid development of China's digital publishing industry. At present, the total output of the industrial is close to 140 billion yuan with an annual growth of over 30%. Digital publishing has become a strong engine and significant economic growth figures point to continue the development of the whole press and publication industry.
JPO-KIPO-SIPO Panel Meeting kicks off in Beijing
Hosted by SIPO, the fourth meeting for expert group on patent examination among JPO, KIPO and SIPO was held in Beijing from September 3rd to 4th. The cooperation among the three offices has yielded great achievements as the partnership continually extended and deepened since 2009, when this mechanism was firstly established, said Deputy Commissioner of SIPO Yang Tiejun during the meeting. It was learnt that the three top patent administrations took the opportunity to discuss for the first time on quality control in patent examination and made presentations respectively on their own practices. Besides, representatives from the three offices exchanged opinions on utility model related regulations and carried out comparative studies on the concept of novelty in patent application.
The upper limit for trademark infringement compensation may raise to one million yuan
On September 3rd, 2012 the China Trademark Annual Meeting was held in Kunming. Zhang Jianhua, Director of the Education, Science, Culture and Health Department of the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, stated that solving the problem of insufficient penalties for trademark infringement has been listed as one of the main purposes and contents of the third amendment of China's Trademark Law. It is also possible that the third amendment will increase the punishment and reinforce the protection to the exclusive right of trademarks through four aspects: adding new infringing types which should bear legal liabilities, raising the compensation upper limit, strengthen punishment on infringing activities and relieve the heavy burden of proof requirements placed on the party that has suffered infringement. Particularly, the upper limit of penalties may be raised from half a million yuan to a million yuan.
China's national defense patent increased by 34.9% in the past decade
Statistics show that during the last ten years, the annual growth rate of China's national defense patent applications increased by 34.9%. The application volume in 2011 alone the cumulative number of applications filed during the 20 years before 2005. The proportion of high-tech national defense patents which feature information in the total amount has soared from 38% in 2002 to 55% in 2011. Fundamental and edgy techniques have become new subjects of patent growth.
China's intangible cultural heritage protection system has been initially formed
Through five years of hard working, China's intangible cultural heritage protection system has been initially formed. During the last five years, China has accomplished the first general survey of national intangible cultural heritage resources, published 1,219 state-level intangible cultural heritages, honored 1,488 successors of state-level intangible cultural heritage projects, set up 12 national cultural eco-system protection experimental plot, applied for 36 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages, launched the Intangible Cultural Heritage Law of the People's Republic of China, set down the survey system, representative project list system and the inheritance and dissemination system, which as a whole offers solid legal protection for the work of protecting intangible cultural heritages.
China-US promote exchanges on IPR protection
T he second China-US International Cooperation Forum on IPR kicked off in Washington DC, aiming to promote bilateral exchanges on intellectual property rights protection. Government officials and representatives from the private sectors hailed the importance of IPR protection in promoting innovation and have pledged to deepen their cooperation in this filed. The China-US International Cooperation Forum on IPR focused on the information industry, particularly the internet.
3,298 copyright contracts concluded on the 19th Beijing International Book Fair
The 19th Beijing International Book Fair was concluded on September 2nd. Rough estimates shows that there were in total 3,298 copyright contracts concluded during the fair, an increase of 11.69% comparing to last year. Among the contracts, 1,867 were concerned with copyright export and co-publishing, with a growth of 13% compared with last year, while the other 1,431 were related to copyright import.
