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| IPR protection is the safeguard for innovation. (Photo/China Daily) |
For the past decade, China's miraculous economic growth and the increasing wealth of its people have attracted worldwide attention as well as curiosity. Then, what is the engine behind China's economic success?
From the labor-intensive "Made in China" to an imaginably knowledge-based "Created in China", China has embarked on an innovative journey to transform itself. However, to realize the transformation, there is a prerequisite, that is the Intellectual Property Right (IPR) protection.
IPR protection is the fundamental for a knowledge-based economy and safeguard for innovation. A sound and solid IPR system lays the foundation for a sustained, innovation-driven growth. Without IPR protection, innovative economic activities will not be possible.
Over the past decade, China's IPR environment has been constantly improving, and beard substantial fruits for both China and the world.
The Patent Strength
Patents make up the principal part of IPR and are an important symbol of a country's innovative capability.
China's strength in innovation has greatly been improved since the 16th CPC National Congress, thanks largely to the Central Government's resolution to enhance the country's IPR environment.
The total number of China's patent applications increased about eight-fold from 200,000 in 2001 to over 1.6 million in 2011, making the country surpass the United States and Japan to become the world's top patent filer.
It is worth noting that these figures are not from the State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) — a national government organization responsible for the examination of foreign and domestic patents and supervision of local SIPO bureaus — but from Thomson Reuters, a third-party professional information provider.
As soon as the figures were released, it soon attracted a wealth of global media's attention.
Le Figaro, one of France's largest national daily newspapers, wrote: "China enjoys a rapid development in the patents declaration, which indicates that the legal awareness of IPRs in China is increasing."
It is rare for major Western media outlets, which hold prejudices toward China, to provide objective and impartial data and comments about the IPR landscape in China.
This reflects that China's IPR environment has indeed improved greatly.
Dr. Donald Shi is a senior architect for a major American software corporation, which provides anti-piracy software protection solutions to companies around the globe, with China's Huawei Technologies being one of the American corporation's clients. Dr. Shi has acted as the American corporation's senior adviser to Huawei since 2008.
The former lead architect of IBM, who has now worked in the software IPR protection business and has been commuting between China and the United States, has witnessed the big changes in China's IPR landscape.
"From what I've seen, the IPR environment in China has gradually been changing for the better," Dr. Shi said to this journalist. "The IPR-related laws and regulations, the law enforcement measures and the public's awareness of IPR have all been improving."
"More and more people in China have begun to purchase licensed software, and free software downloading services, software piracy, online piracy, pirated DVDs, etc., have all been decreasing," Dr. Shi added.
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