China has encouraged the whole world by making remarkable progress in intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in a short time, a world IPR body official said Monday.

Francis Gurry, director-general of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), made the remarks in a video greeting to the China Intellectual Property Protection Week launched here.

Gurry said China's development in the intellectual property sector was faster than that of many other countries, which contributed to the world's innovation cause.

Gurry's remarks reflected China's persistent efforts over the past three decades to protect intellectual property, said Tian Lipu, director of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO).

China had established a trademark law system that suited both China and international regulations, Tian said, adding the country had joined six international treaties or conventions concerning trademarks.

Statistics of the SIPO showed the administration had processed more than 4 million patent applications and registered more than 3million trademarks as of the end of March last year, both ranking in the top list in the world.

The country had enhanced the protection of international trademarks in the past years, as more than 530,000 foreign trademarks from more than 130 countries or regions had been registered in China by 2008, Tian said.

The figure was more than 100 times more than the 1979 level, when companies and enterprises from only 20 countries or regions had registered their trademarks in China.

Tian said China advocated the establishment of the World Intellectual Property Day on April 26 in 2001, and has organized the annual event of Intellectual Property Protection Week since 2004.

This year will feature lectures on intellectual property protection, crackdown on illegal video and audio products as well as a white paper on intellectual property protection of China's custom administrations, according to the official.

Source: Xinhua

April 20, 2009

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