On March 5, Premier Li Keqiang echoed the resolve in the Government Work Report, which he presented at the annual sessions of China's top legislature and top political advisory body, and reiterated the importance of better protecting intellectual property rights (IPR).
As part of the on-going institutional reform, China will set up a new State intellectual property administration, which will perform the combined duties of protecting IPR, accelerating the establishment of an IPR protection system, and registering/granting and administratively adjudicating trademarks, patents and geographical indication of origin. This shows China is attaching greater importance to IPR protection.
Strict IPR protection and resolute actions against IPR violators are necessary for China to expeditiously build an innovation-oriented economy and interactively promote an innovation-driven development strategy. So the move will not only manifest the value of intellectual property, and create a good business and innovation-oriented environment, but also safeguard the legal rights of the main market players and IPR holders.
Strengthened IPR protection will also encourage and protect innovation. As knowledge and information are in short supply in a free competitive market, infringements of knowledge and information, if not curbed, will increase the investment risk of innovators. To encourage and inspire innovation, countries therefore have to regulate the information market through intellectual property. Different from other methods and commodities, innovation involves a high cost. But the cost of replicating or reproducing an innovative product is extremely low, which leads to IPR infringements.
The punitive damages system for IPR infringements stems from the punitive damages system in common law, which is well developed in the United States as a legal measure of deterrence and sanction. The Patent Law, Trademark Law and the Trade Secrets Law of the US clearly stipulate the punitive damages liability for those IPR violators.
However, with the development of judicial practice in China, its civil law system, too, has adopted a punitive damages system for IPR infringements.
To strengthen the compensation, punishment and deterrence effect of the punitive damages system for IPR infringement, help IPR holders to receive appropriate compensation for the loss they suffer and increase the penalty for infringing IPR－in order to curb such violations－the authorities should make more efforts on three fronts. (Source: China Daily)
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