The filings for three types of patents maintained continuous and rapid growth, whereas the increase rate of domestic invention patents exceeded those from abroad.

Among all the three types of patent applications received by SIPO in 2007, 586,734 filings were domestic and 107,419 were from abroad; 245,161 filings were for inventions, 181,324 for utility models and 267,668 for designs; 380,260 filings were service filings and 313,893 were non-service ones.

Among the three types of patents granted by SIPO last year, 301,632 were domestic and 50,150 were from abroad; 67,948 patents were for inventions, 150,036 for utility models and 133,798 for designs; 182,340 patents were service patents and 169,442 were non-service ones.

The gross filings for three types of patents maintained a continuous and rapid increase in 2007; however, filings for utility model and design accounted for the majority of the total. Domestic patent filings for inventions took the primary proportion of the total, and the increase rate of domestic invention patent filings exceeded that of abroad ones. The ratio of domestic service patent filings further increased, therefore, enterprises emerged as principal innovational entities.

The situation of patent granted in 2007 featured two main characteristics: the number of patent granted for three types of patents kept increasing rapidly, and the increase rate of domestic invention patents granted was higher than that of from abroad. The increase rate of granted domestic invention patents was seventeen percentage points higher than that of abroad, and the gap between the numbers of domestic and abroad granted invention patents further narrowed.

The number of received patent filings maintained a rapid and continuous increase in recent years. The first 1,000,000 applications were accumulated in 15 years. The second 1,000,000 were made in four years and two months. It took only two years and three months to realize the third 1,000,000.

An official with SIPO said that the proportion of domestic invention patent filings among the total patent filings has increased remarkably. Domestic invention patent filings accounted for 47.8%, 50.7% and 53.4% of each of the first three 1,000,000 applications respectively. However, it accounted for 60.8% of the fourth 1,000,000 applications. The increase rate of domestic invention patent filings is obviously higher than that from abroad. Take the year of 2006 as an example, the number of domestic invention patent filings increased by 30.8% compared with the same period of the previous year, which is twenty percentage points higher than the invention patent filings from abroad in the same period.

Since 2007, the departments of industry and commerce have expedited examination of trademarks and meanwhile primarily solved the problems concerning malicious applications, malicious oppositions and malicious licenses by such measures as primary examination and limitations on registration. By the end of November, 2007, the trademark registration had increased by 29.19 % to reach 3,013,700. At the same time, the authorities implemented rigid measures in the investigation of trademark criminal cases. As of November, 2007, 41,000 trademark infringement cases had been nabbed and 143 had been delivered to the judicial organs.

Puma AG, one of the world’s largest sports apparel producers, registered the trademark of “Puma” in 1999 in China. In the first half of 2007, the German company launched a comprehensive investigation across Wenzhou city, finding out that several supermarkets and stores were illegally selling sports shoes bearing logos similar to “Puma”. Puma AG then filed a lawsuit against 14 supermarkets involving RMB 1.6 million ($213,333). Several claims had been resolved after the two sides reached agreements before court hearings. Those irreconcilable claims would be arranged for court trial one by one. 　　

Puma AG detected that Yincheng Supermarket was selling sneakers bearing similar logos to Puma’s on July 9, 2007. The plaintiff held the opinion that those sports shoes were made to mislead consumers. Following half-an-hour mediation permitted by court, the parties held different opinions on the amount of settlement compensation and the court thereby concluded the above-mentioned ruling in the end.

French Lafarge Building Material Co., Ltd, a Hong Kong registered company, was ordered to pay Lafarge RMB 300,000 ($40,000) in compensation. The court also banned a Sichuan Chengdu Gypsum firm and its owner surnamed Zhao from illegally using the Lafarge brand.

The Hong Kong company had a very good knowledge about Lafarge’s brand effect and established a building material company under the business name of Lafarge in 2005. Since 2006, the Hong Kong company has illegally allowed the Sichuan firm to use Lafarge’s Chinese name on its products and charged RMB 60,000 ($8,000) royalty fee every year. The Sichuan company and Zhao had issued a great deal of publicity materials in the name of Lafarge to promote products.

China’s efforts in Customs IP protection have received extensive recognition from the world in the last five years, 7,002 IP infringement cases in import and export were investigated, involving 680 million Yuan (over $90, 6 million).

With a series of new measures like regional customs clearance, rapid customs clearance, easy customs clearance, electronic customs clearance, selective check, logistics supervision and post supervision, the inspection work of the Customs has been greatly accelerated. In five years, 1.51 billion persons were checked for entry and exit, together with 10.48 billion tons of goods worth US$ 7.36 trillion for import and export.

BiosTime sachets have won a good reputation due to the quality and efficacy and the trademark has been selected as Well-Known Trademark in China.

However, Guangzhou BiosTime became aware of a Dalian Company’s illegal use of合生元—the Chinese translation of BiosTime on their product instructions, labels, packaging and the prominent place of handbags. The infringing products were found being sold in a drugstore in Weihai, Shandong Province.

Guangzhou BiosTime held the opinion that the Dalian company had seriously infringed BiosTime’s trademark right and therefore entrusted Beijing Unitalen Attorneys at Law to initiate a lawsuit against the Dalian company to Qingdao Municipal Intermediate People’s Court of Shandong.

In February 2007, the court started the hearing of the case. The Dalian Company contended that 合生元 is a generic name and it is legitimate to use it. The chief judge deemed that 合生元 could not be recognized as generic name of the products. 合生元 is just one version of the Chinese translation of synbiotics. There are several other versions such as “共生源”、“合生原” and “合生素”. Synbiotics has no dictionary meaning and has not been cataloged into any industry. The court held that the Dalian company had not sufficiently proven its case only based on some scholars’ opinion that 合生元is a generic name.

The court concluded in the first instance that the Dalian company must cease its infringing activities immediately and pay Guangzhou BiosTimes RMB130,000 ($17,333) in compensation.