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Notice of the General Office of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and the General Office of the People's Government of Beijing Municipality on the Issuance of the Action Plan for Strengthening Intellectual Property Rights Protection

2020-12-23 16:24  

Notice of the General Office of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and the General Office of the People's Government of Beijing Municipality on the Issuance of the Action Plan for Strengthening Intellectual Property Rights Protection

To all CPC district committees, district governments, departments, committees and offices of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, state organs, state-owned enterprises, people's organizations, colleges, and universities in Beijing:

With the approval of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and the People's Government of Beijing Municipality, the Action Plan for Strengthening Intellectual Property Rights Protection is hereby issued to you for careful implementation based on actual conditions.

The General Office of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee

The General Office of the People's Government of Beijing Municipality

August 22nd, 2020

Action Plan for Strengthening Intellectual Property Rights Protection

Enhancing the protection of intellectual property (IP) is an important strategy to improve the business environment and to promote high-quality development. In order to thoroughly implement The Guideline on Strengthening Intellectual Property Rights Protection issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council, this Action Plan is formulated based on Beijing's actual conditions with the purpose of optimizing the system of IP protection as well as transforming Beijing into the best city of IP protection.

I. General Requirements

Efforts shall be made to 1) implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC, and General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech to Beijing;  2) strengthen the concept that protecting IP is protecting innovation; 3) make coordinated plans, achieve breakthroughs in key areas and provide strict and equal protection; 4) stick to the highest standards, carry forward with a pioneering spirit, and demonstrate Beijing's characteristics as China's capital city; 5) improve the seven-sphere landscape of the IP protection integrating administrative law enforcement, judicial adjudication, diversified mediation, commercial arbitration, legal services, social supervision, and industry self-regulation; 6) build an IP protection model with an organic connection between standardized management and strict law enforcement to improve Beijing's overall capacity for IP protection. Through these efforts, we hope that by 2020, Beijing will have a better IP protection mechanism and a better management system to effectively curb IP infringement, and solve problems facing IP rights holders when safeguarding their interests, namely being difficult to provide evidence and time-consuming, high costs and low compensation. By 2025, the IP system will be further improved, the value of knowledge will be more respected in business, and the system will play a greater role in motivating innovation.

II. Strengthen the rule of law and give a clear direction to strictly protect the IP

1. Perfect the legal mechanism and the system of standards. We should further protect the IP, promote the legislation, and optimize all IP supporting systems. When setting the various kinds of IP standards, we should refer to the leading international standards. Job-related scientific and technological achievements should be empowered as intellectual properties, where the achievements' ownership should be clarified to better protect the creators' rights and interests to achievements in the course of their employment.

2. Crack down on illegal behaviors. Administrative organs should pay more effort to investigating and punishing infringements. Repeated and deliberate infringements and serious obstruction to law enforcement should be punished according to law. We should better connect administrative law enforcement and criminal justice with the help of more perfect requirements on case transfer and evidence standards. We should step up efforts to crack down on IP crimes, make more detailed standards for filing a case and the prosecution procedures, and address problems about the jurisdiction and the application of law. We should enhance judicial protection for civil cases, and implement the punitive compensation system. Judicial rules for typified compensation should be in place, and the amount of compensation for infringement should be legally reasonable. We will explore the possibility of setting reasonable standards of IP loss by referring to third-party assessments.

3. Settle disputes through multiple channels. We should establish and perfect dispute settlement channels including arbitration, mediation, administrative adjudication, and judicial adjudication. Administrative adjudication features high efficiency, low cost, and simple procedure.  Thus, it should be leveraged to guide parties involved to quickly settle disputes on patent infringement. The division between the complex and simple IP trial of cases should be put in place in order to raise the trial efficiency. We should perfect the speedy examination mechanism for simple grant and confirmation of trademark rights.

4. Optimize the rule of evidence. Evidence used in channels including the justice, administrative law enforcement, arbitration, and mediation should be standardized. Notarization is the encouraged way to conserve evidence. We should explore the attorney's investigation orders system, which supports attorneys to legally obtain evidence. Timestamp, blockchain and other digital evidence conservation technologies should be more widely applied to IP protection.

5. Strengthen credit supervision and management. We should set up credit files for market players and improve the "blacklist" of discredited players. Names of enterprises with repeated or deliberate infringements should be disclosed to the society; for those seriously discredited players, their availabilities to fiscal subsidy and other policy supports, fiscally supported projects, government procurement, government-invested projects biding, and land grants, transfers, circulation and any other trades of public resources should be restricted.

III. Enhance the social governance and create an environment of all-sided protection

6. Improve the capacity of arbitration and mediation. Arbitration institutions should be more versed in the IP protection and internet arbitration should be better advocated. For IP cases, civil and administrative and judicial mediation should all be developed. The IP protection center should do its part to regulate the mediation procedure and cultivate professional mediation organizations and personnel.

7. Provide better public legal services and strengthen industry self-regulation. We should guide enterprises to seek help from notary offices, lawyers and other professional services in the industry-wide and whole-chain risk prevention and control. We should support professional service institutions to provide small and micro enterprises with non-profit legal consultancy and other services needed to protect their rights. We will explore public interest litigation for IP cases, which will protect national, public, and citizens' legal rights and interests. To enhance industry self-regulation, we should support all industry associations to establish their rules and covenants, hold regular conferences to discuss measures for the IP risk prevention and control and IP protection, and establish and improve the dispute mediation mechanism. IP voluntary services should be continued to mobilize social forces in the governance and protection of IP.

8. Accept the supervision of society. We should respond to suggestions and proposals made by deputies of the National People's Congress and members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in a timely manner. Both administrative permits and punishments should go public. We should disclose bases, conditions, and results of administrative regulation and punishment in accordance with law to accept the supervision of the public. Hotline 12345 should do its part as a platform for citizens' opinions and suggestions and we should respond to social concerns as fast as possible.

9. Let technical expertise guarantee IP protection. We should guide the establishment of a supporting federation of inspection and appraisal techniques for IP infringement disputes to improve the overall inspection and appraisal capacity. The mechanism of technical investigators should be established with a sound management model and training system. Technology professionals should be supported to do their parts in inspection and appraisal, technical analysis, value assessment, and other supporting work in accordance with the law, providing IP administrative law enforcement, arbitration, mediation, and judicial adjudication with timely, accurate, and professional supports.

10. Improve market players' ability to protect IP. We should further standardize the IP management system, encouraging both small and micro enterprises based on innovation to adopt thoroughly-designed IP management through entrustment and enhancing colleges and universities' roles as pilot and demonstration units of IP. We should continuously push enterprises to implement the regulations on IP management, and establish IP management systems coordinated with their own development. Market players should carry out IP risk warning and assessment and improve their ability to manage and control risk, as well as their IP protection ability in talent introduction, international exhibitions, and export and import of products and technologies.

11. Establish IP insurance and a mutual fund for IP protection. The IP insurance will be piloted, and Beijing-based insurance institutions are encouraged to develop insurance for IP protection. Enterprises are encouraged to insure themselves against both patent enforcement and patent infringement. We should support enterprises in setting up mutual funds in a market-oriented way for safeguarding their IP. In this way, their ability to protect IP will be better guaranteed.

IV. Enhance coordination and connection to form momentum for timely IP protection with high-efficiency

12. Enhance cross-regional coordination and cooperation. A coordination and cooperation platform for cross-regional administrative protection of the IP will be established to enhance the cross-regional synergy in assisting IP protection. Based on the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei IP cooperation mechanism, a governance system for cross-regional coordination and cooperation in the transfer of infringement and counterfeit clues, investigation, evidence collection, law enforcement, mutual recognition of results, and information sharing will be established. We should support adjudication organs in establishing a remote service platform for litigation consultancy where parties involved in IP cases can file cases, check their cases, have video trials, and enjoy other services without being present in person.

13. Carry out specific actions for the protection of certain IP. To enhance the protection of trademark rights, we should guide the establishment of a warning system, and investigate and seriously punish infringements. To better protect online copyrights, we will explore a new model for online law enforcement, optimize internet supervision technologies, crack down on internet infringement and piracy, clarify internet services providers' management responsibilities, and accelerate the building of a standardized system for the examination and approval of online copyrights. To better protect business secrets, we will guide enterprises to complete a thoroughly-designed management system and support professional service providers to participate in the defense of IP rights, making business secrets safer. To enhance the protection of geographical indications, we will start the pilot reform on the examination and approval of using special marks under the geographical indication protection, guiding enterprises to better trace products under the geographical indication protection for better quality. Sources will be more standardized and scaled, and a protection mechanism integrating both the place of production and the market will be established. To improve the order of the IP agency industry, we will use combined measures involving monitoring, investigation, administrative law enforcement and joint disciplinary actions to fight against violations in the IP agency industry.

14. Enhance IP protection in key areas. We should drive e-commerce platforms to establish an IP protection mechanism featuring both online and offline engagement and a synchronized governance of production and marketing, and urge these platforms to do their part in management by verifying online shop owners' qualifications, punishing those who default, etc. We will drive e-commerce platforms to establish a timely response mechanism for infringements, under which contents of infringement will be deleted quickly and prevented from spreading further. We will implement regulations on the speedy handling of patent infringements in e-commerce to promote the timely adjudication of related disputes. We should optimize the protection system of the exhibition IP by recording exhibits' IP and gaining exhibitors' promises of not committing infringement. In this way, we can better protect the IP in major exhibitions and fairs like the China International Fair for Trade in Services. We should better protect the broadcasting rights for sporting events, especially for major ones like the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics. We should strengthen the protection of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), guide TCM-related entities to apply for patents and register their trademarks, and support the defense of their rights overseas. To better protect traditional cultures, we should make a list for them, including folk literature and art and intangible cultural heritage.

15. Carry out demonstration work for the administrative adjudication on patent infringement disputes. We will explore to establish a mechanism of judicial confirmation of administrative mediation agreements, and clarify competent courts and working procedures. With the help of the Internet, big data and other technologies, we can bring online trials into reality. Furthermore, technical facts will be identified more accurately and efficiently with analysis from technical professionals.

16. Accelerate the building of institutions for the timely protection of IP. We should formulate the construction plan for Beijing's IP protection center and center on timely IP protection. We should optimize patent preliminary examination mechanisms, reduce the duration of the preliminary examination, and improve the capability for timely preliminary examination. We will also improve the quality of preliminary examination for patents in new fields and with new technologies like AI, blockchain, 5G, the IoT, biological medicine, and new materials, etc. Speedy rights confirmation and synergetic rights protection will be achieved to provide innovation subjects with a "one-stop" targeted rights protection plan.

V. Enhance international communication to jointly create an equal environment for IP protection

17. Enhance international exchange and cooperation. We should implement the MOU and supplemental agreements on strengthening IP cooperation signed by Beijing and the World Intellectual Property Organization(WIPO), and establish IP cooperation and communication mechanism with other major cities in the world. We will study and implement the IP protection-related terms in agreements with international organizations, and in other bilateral and multilateral agreements, build channels for the information exchange with domestic and international right holders, carry out special action for the IP protection concerning foreign affairs or foreign nationals, provide "one-stop" services of IP protection in international industrial parks, and equally protect domestic as well as international right holders' lawful rights and interests. We should actively publicize Beijing's achievements in IP protection by leveraging various platforms for international cooperation and exchanges. Additionally,  in due time, we will publish the IP protection white book of Beijing.

18. Improve aid services for overseas IP protection. We will establish a mechanism with experts being consultants for overseas IP protection, and set up Beijing's overseas IP public service information base as well as an expert database for responses to overseas IP disputes in key areas. We should organize investigations on overseas IP protection situation of enterprises, publicize, study, and provide countermeasures to major overseas IP disputes, and issue assessment and early warnings to the IP protection in key countries (regions). Enterprises are encouraged to establish an overseas IP rights protection alliance and guide service providers to offer overseas risk warnings. We should support enterprises or service institutions to observe the IP protection situation in their host countries with the help of their overseas branches, publicize important IP rights protection information, and respond to emergencies in a coordinated way. We should optimize service resources of Beijing (ZGC) International Intellectual Property Service Hall to provide social entities with more convenient and low-cost international IP services.

19. Enhance the IP protection in import and export processes. We should bring together the departments responsible for import and export IP protection, strengthen the supervision on channels with a high frequency of infringements, on goods with a high possibility of infringements, and on the import and export infringing goods from key countries, and further improve the law enforcement and lower enterprises' costs on IP protection. We should punish those who import or export infringing goods more severely  to decrease the number of such goods that appear at import and export ports of Beijing. We will also enhance the IP protection for cross-border e-commerce.

VI. Beef up the infrastructure construction to powerfully support IP protection work 

22. Optimize the public service system. The construction of Beijing's IP public service system should be expanded to cover all districts. Public IP services for key industrial parks should be well planned. The IP circuit trial should be established to serve these parks. We will explore an all-in-one IP protection platform which centralizes resource dispatching, coordinates systems, and jointly builds and shares information. In this way, all IP information and resources can be integrated to promote basic information connectivity.

21. Increase investment and support. We should coordinate the use of fiscal funds to increase investment for IP protection, and provide sufficient funds for main tasks like risk monitoring and early warning. We should encourage enterprises to invest more money in improving their capabilities in IP protection.

22. Enhance the team building of IP professionals. We will formulate an action plan for training IP professionals, encourage colleges, universities, and social institutions to jointly cultivate all kinds of IP professionals, and introduce overseas high-level talents to work on IP-related work in Beijing. We should improve the evaluation system of IP professional titles and encourage orderly exchanges among IP lawyers, administrative law enforcement officials, and judicial officials.

VII. Being better organized to implement all tasks

23. Strengthen Party leadership. The protection of IP should be under the CPC's leadership.  IP protection should be included in the key agenda of all districts' CPC committees and governments, which should carry out regular researches on certain topics to address key difficulties through collaboration. All IP office meetings at the district and municipality levels should fully serve as discussion platforms for coordination. All member units should do their part to build an IP protection system through collaboration. Beijing Municipal Intellectual Property Office should work with related municipal government organs to improve working mechanisms, strengthen  coordination, provide better guidance and give supervision and inspection to ensure the effective implementation of all work, and will timely report important issues to the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and Beijing Municipal Government according to procedures.

24. Enhance examination and evaluation. The IP protection KPI should be included in the performance assessment and business environment appraisal of all CPC district committees and district governments. We should annually investigate the social satisfaction rate of IP protection and assess the efficiency of the protection. We will improve the mechanism of exposure and admonition, and urge all districts and departments to increase their protection of IP.

25. Implement reward mechanisms. We should award, according to national as well as Beijing's regulations, collectives and individuals if they make outstanding contributions to the IP protection. We will complete the reward mechanism for informers of infringements and counterfeits, thus motivating the public to participate in IP protection.

26. Do a good job in publicity and guidance. We should guide public opinion with regular publications of influential and typical cases in order to firmly ingrain the idea of IP protection deep into people's minds. We will implement the responsibility program featuring that "he who enforces the law is responsible for explaining the law to the public". With this program, IP-related laws will be better popularized. We should promote the incorporation of IP protection courses into the education plan of Beijing's Party schools (academies of governance) at the municipality and district level. We should also carry out activities on IP protection in enterprises, government organs, communities, and schools, or even hold these activities online. In this way, the whole society will be more aware of IP protection, and a suitable environment will be created to build Beijing into the best city of IP protection.