Chinese companies, especially brand name producers, have resolutely embarked on the road of safeguarding their rights after experiencing various lawsuits inivolving intellectual property rights (IPR) at home and abroad.

Hisense, a Chinese manufacturer of consumer electronic goods, won a lawsuit over Bosch and Siemens, which illegally registered the Chinese company's brand in Germany.

In the past six years, Bosch and Siemens illegally registered in Europe trademarks belonging to seven Chinese companies, an act viewed by most Chinese as unfair competition. The act has made it difficult for the Chinese home appliance maker to sell its products in France, Bulgaria, Spain and some other European countries. In the negotiations on the trademark issue, Bosch and Siemens asked for 40 million euros for the trademark, which Hisense did not accept.

By relying on legal means, Hisense finally reached an agreementwith its rival last March to end the disputes and recovered the trademark "Hisense." The two companies also agreed to seek future cooperation and joint investment opportunities.

Zhang Xiuhong, general manager of Hisense Import and Export Co.Ltd., said, "This is a bitter lesson for Hisense. As Chinese enterprises set footholds on world market for only less than a decade, they should sum up experience in protecting their lawful property rights."

After the lawsuit, Hisense has taken a series of remedy measures including registering trademarks in more than 100 countries and regions.

Monks of China's famed Shaolin Temple, commonly considered the birthplace of Chinese Kung Fu, a unique combination of Buddhism and Chinese martial arts, have also succeeded in safeguarding the temple's rights to its name by legal means.

Generations of Shaolin monks have devoted themselves to enriching and improving temple tradition and have gradually developed it into a complex and sophisticated system of fighting, widely recognized as Kung Fu. It became famous with the release of the movie "Shaolin Temple" 20-odd years ago and its global influence has grown since the 1970s due to its use in many of foreign films.

Unfortunately, 80 unauthorized Kung Fu schools in China have used the name Shaolin, and more than 100 businesses, including those selling cars, beer, tires, furniture, and even wire, bear the Shaolin name, all without the permission of the temple.

In 1994, the temple won a lawsuit against a company in a nearby town that was using the Shaolin name to market sausage, the first case of this type. To further defend its reputation and interests, the temple has set up a firm, the Henan Shaolin Temple Industrial Development Ltd. Co., to protect and administer the intangible assets of Shaolin Temple. In recent years, the temple applied for registration of both "Shaolin" and "Shaolin Temple" as trademarks, and similar efforts have been made in other countries.

Shi Yongxin, abbot of the temple, said, "The Shaolin Temple is an important piece of cultural heritage for all human beings. To protect it, we must propose draft legislation to ensure appropriate action."

In contrast with these two successful defenders, a number of Chinese businesses are still unaware of how to safeguard their interests through the rules of IPR protection.

Nationally, more than 100 brand-name products such as Changhong,Quanjude, Rongbaozhai, Tongrentang, Hongtashan, Wuliangye and others have had their names illegally registered by other Chinese and overseas manufacturers, resulting in a predicament in exports, multinational exchanges and potential economic losses.

About 40,000 trademark infringement cases were prosecuted in China in 2004, 51.6 percent more than in 2003. More than 5,000 of the cases involved foreign trademarks, up 158 percent year-on-year,according to the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC).

Almost all Chinese DVD manufacturers failed in lawsuits overseas for "offending foreign IPR" in the past few years. Having analyzed the cases, a Chinese industrialist said the true failure of the booming Chinese DVD industry was due to their lacking of IPR protection sense and knowledge.

Ren Yongqiang, director of the Law Institute under the Guizhou Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, said, "Establishment of a complete legal system on IPR protection is the basis for conversion of scientific results into productivity and achieve virtuous economic growth."

He advised the central government to build a quick response system to fight transnational prosecutions on infringement of intellectual property rights and urged government departments to provide legal aids to Chinese enterprises involved in IPR lawsuits.

"In the 21st century when the world is being integrated in a knowledge-based economy, China's effective IPR protection efforts will better enable itself in sharing the fruits of human innovation with the rest of the world," Ren said.