Inter-Ministry Office Issues Work Plan on IPR Protection and Use

On August 24, multiple government agencies passed the 13th Five Year Plan National Intellectual Property Protection and Use Plan Major Tasks and Division of Labor during an inter-ministerial joint session. The State Council IPR Strategy Implementation Work Inter-Ministerial Joint Session Office released the notice.  
 
Members of the Inter-Ministerial Group, including the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), Ministry of Public Security (MPS), National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), among others, agreed upon 199 actions aimed at improving IP protection and promoting IP use within the 13th Five Year Plan Period (2016-2020). The items primarily focus on strengthening China’s domestic innovation capabilities, with measures on financing and talent, and also include longstanding IP protection priorities, such as anti-counterfeiting, trademark protection, and juridical protection.
 
The 199 items are divided into overall targets, main tasks, work priorities, and special projects. The exhaustive list includes multiple items pertinent to the ICT sector.

• In terms of policy, the plan calls for accelerated formulation and revision of IP laws, regulations, and judicial interpretations (#16), and includes a roster of forthcoming laws including the fourth revision of the Patent Law, the third revision of the Copyright Law, corresponding implementing regulations for both (#34, and Column #1). There are also items on improving the service invention mechanism and the legal framework for abusive IP behavior (#36), and formulating the AML Guidelines on Abusive IP Behavior (#41).
• Specific to the ICT industry, the plan mentions the need to research IP protection rules for emerging industries such as Internet Plus, e-commerce, and big data (#38). IP protection should be vigorous in sectors such as broadband mobile wireless internet, cloud computing, Internet of Things, big data, high-performance computing, mobile smart terminals (#76). Perfecting the protection mechanism for IC layout designs is also listed as an item (#101).
• There are also items on standardizing protection of trade secrets (#21, #42), promoting software anti-piracy work (#22), creating an online patent and copyright case enforcement system (#59), improving IP protection at trade shows (#62), and monitoring patent application quality (#92). The plan also pushes for the development of IP professionals and talent (#180).