China needs to pay greater attention to protecting, creating and developing intellectual property rights and form a proper protection and regulation system of IPR.

Xu Guanhua, Minister of Science and Technology made these remarks in his article published in People's Daily.

Xu quoted Premier Wen Jiabao as saying that competition in the 21st century is actually competition in intellectual property rights.

With the speeding up of the globalization process, IPR has become increasingly important in the international competition and gradually become an important method of obtaining scientific, technological and economic advantages for a nation or enterprise. It has also become a core element for an enterprise or nation's competitiveness, Xu Guanhua stressed.

He pointed out that the awareness of IPR creativity and protection is still weak; many enterprises still lack core competitiveness; IPR ownership is not compatible with China's economic development level and cannot adapt to the fierce competitive situation; enterprises lack independent innovation and have not become the major entity for creating intellectual property. Xu Guanhua said there is an urgent need to improve protection of intellectual property rights, management and application level in scientific research institute, universities and especially enterprises. He called for greater attention to the following three areas:

Firstly, to protect intellectual property rights - it is not only the requirement of the WTO rule, but also a demand of China's development. Without IPR, independent innovation will become an empty talk. Therefore China should fully exert the IPR system's important role, stimulate independent innovation, encourage investment in science and technology, optimize the resource mix, protect creative achievements, maintain competition order, promote the technology transfer and industrialization and improve independent innovation capability. China should also establish and complete the IPR protection system, create a legal environment for respecting and protecting IPR and strengthen the forces working in IPR protection and management.

Secondly, to create and develop IPR should be an important element of China's development strategy. Implementing technical standards and patents should be an important strategy for scientific and technological as well as economic development. During the tenth five-year plan period, China implemented the patent and technical standards strategy. Through efforts from various walks of life, especially the IPR authorities, great achievements have been made in this field. In recent years, China's application of patents has been growing by 18% every year. In 2004, the number of invention patents surpassed other patents for the first time. But generally speaking, China's efforts in comprehensively and systematically implementing patent and technical standards are still insufficient. This issue should be an important task not only for scientific and technological management department but also for economic development sectors.

Thirdly, to prevent abuse of IPR from restricting the independent innovation - a complete IPR system should include the IPR protection and restriction systems. In fact, China still doesn't have such a system or policy. China needs to complete her national IPR system and prevent abuse of IPR from restricting creativity. The abuse of IPR is in conflict with proper use of IPR. It refers to behavior that the holder of the IPR has transgressed the jurisdiction of legal permission to use his/ her IPR by improper use, he/she can cause harm on other people or the public interest. For example, to use IPR to monopolize the industry or conduct unjustified competition, or irresponsibly use their prosecution right and cause severe damage to the opposition's reputation or economic losses distorting normal market competition. Currently many countries or regions have to regulate the abuse of IPR so that a legal theory or practice can become common practice. Efforts in IPR protection have been strengthened.

However, in China, Xu Guanhua said that the regulation on abuse of IPR or anti-monopoly regulations have not yet been made and greater attention should be paid to this issue.

By People's Daily Online