At a meeting of the Central Committee for Deepening Overall Reform a directive was passed titled "The Guideline on Strengthening Intellectual Property Rights Protection”. The document states that the Government aim is to “Strive to find that by 2022, the phenomenon of infringement is more likely to be effectively curbed”. The document predicts that the biggest challenges China faces, when legislating include high costs, low compensation and difficulties in providing evidence for safeguarding IP rights. To face up and prepare for this, international cooperation and communication between domestic and foreign right holders will see a newfound focus. Additionally, the document calls for a speeding up of a punitive compensation system, which with the recent change to Trademark law, appears that the authorities are looking to begin reform. China will make full use of the law, technology and social governance policies increasing IPR protection.
The long term aim, beyond the protections, is that the resulting impact in China will be high social satisfaction levels, showing that the aims are not just for the foreign market but there is an aim to produce a positive domestic impact, it is suspected that these improvements to IPR will spur on innovation due to reduction of piracy which seeks to exploit investments made by others.
The administration seeks to provide guidance on how the said enforcement will take place which will help companies who need to use the court system to protect their property (lowering the standard for criminal prosecution is also an aim in the document). With this China could see its global foothold in leading on IP reform strengthen further, innovations like the internet court combined with new access to bring prosecutions could see it become one of the leading administrations in efficiency dealing with IP disputes.
Source: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201911/25/WS5ddb0c83a310cf3e35579928.html
