Patent Amendments ©(Part II of II)

The Greater China IP Updates – September 2022

By Lyndon

Inaugural WIPO Global Awards Has Winners from China

The Global Awards program is a new initiative held as part of the July 14-22 WIPO Assemblies. The awards are an initiative which recognizes exceptional enterprises and individuals who use intellectual property to make a positive impact at home or abroad. The process involves a group of seven eminent jurors from around the world choosing winners who submit the most innovative commercial solutions, based on IP rights, which promote economic, social and cultural progress. The five winners this year were awarded for their contributions to early cancer detection, energy-saving lights, water recycling, dementia diagnosis and enhanced medical imaging. One of the winners was Raycan, a company based in Suzhou, which specializes in the development and production of radiation detection and imaging equipment.

China Overtakes US in Scientific Research Output

As China’s rising numbers of patents shows, there has been a growth in investment in R&D in recent years. Currently, China is the country which publishes the highest number of scientific research papers yearly. More importantly, China is responsible for 27.2% of the world’s top 1% most frequently cited papers according to data published by Japan’s National Institute of Science and Technology Policy. The figures were based on yearly averages between 2018 and 2020. The number of citations a study receives is generally taken more seriously in academia as a metric rather than merely comparing the number of papers a country publishes. China has excelled at research in different aspects of material science, chemistry, engineering and mathematics. The US was in second place with 24.9% of the top 1% most highly cited research studies with an emphasis on clinical medicine, basic life sciences and physics. China published a yearly average of 407,181 scientific papers of varying quality, but the top 1% data shows clearly that China has increased the integrity of research in many patentable fields.

British Company Wins Trademark Battle in China

Manolo Blahnik, the famous shoe brand, has won a legal battle in China to use its own name. The judgement was handed down by the Supreme People’s Court in June after a two decade legal battle. A Chinese businessman, Fang Yuzhou, had filed various trademarks related to the Manolo Blahnik name back in 2000, causing the British company to take legal action. Under the first to file system in China, there was no need for the Chinese national to prove prior use or intent to use, thus creating a kind of wild west environment for holders of trademarks. In the US and most other countries, such a case would have been swiftly resolved in the IP owners’ favor, but it was only recently that China amended the IP law with a section on bad faith filings. This legal victory means Manolo Blahnik can now expand its business in China without the worry of undeserved lawsuits adjudicated by a biased legal system.

Patent Commercialization Rate at Chinese Universities Increases

Over the past decade, the technology production rate and commercialization efficiency at Chinese universities has rapidly increased. At a recent briefing held by the Ministry of Education, it was revealed that patents granted to Chinese universities went from 69,000 in 2012 to 308,000 in 2021. The grant rate also rose in the decade from 65.1% to 83.9%. Patent transfer/licensing agreements jumped from over 2,000 to over 15,000 in the same time period. The estimated monetary value of patent commercialization was 820 million yuan in 2012 and 8.89 billion yuan in 2021. Part of the reason for the increase was due to government support and coordination allowing universities to connect with various enterprises in order to hasten commercial development of their IP. Also, the implementation of patent open licensing of university-developed patents was key according to the CNIPA’s Intellectual Property Utilization Promotion Department. The commercialization program is ongoing, and a recent 2021 initiative intends to go further by educating universities on how to allocate IP-generated profits, setting up technology transfer centers, connecting universities with state-owned enterprises and SMEs as well as lowering the cost of technology acquisition for SMEs.

Hong Kong Adopts Marrakesh Treaty

The Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or otherwise Print Disabled came into Force in Hong Kong and China on 5 May, 2022. A spokesman for the Intellectual Property Department stated that it would demonstrate and reaffirm the commitment to uphold such international standards for the benefit of the print-disabled population.