Firstly, the number of patent applications continued increasing stably and rapidly. In 2008, the number of patent applications throughout the country kept increasing rapidly, with increase amplitude of up to 19.4%.

Secondly, the number of applications filed by enterprises, the number of applications filed by individual enterprises, and the number of the enterprises who filed more than one hundred applications apparently increased. In 2008, 40,500 domestic enterprises filed patent applications, with a year-on-year increase of 23.9%.

Thirdly, domestic patent application and granting structures are apparently optimized. The proportion of patents for invention among domestic applications increased. At the same time, the number of patents for invention granted to domestic applications reached the same level as the number of the patents for inventions granted to the foreign applications.

Fourthly, the number of domestic patent applications for invention kept increasing in respective technical fields.

On June 5, 2008, the State Department promulgated Outline of the National Intellectual Property Strategy, which is a symbol of the formal initiation of the implementation of intellectual property strategy. It is determined in Outline of the National Intellectual Property Strategy that China will be built into a country with greater capability to create, utilize, protect and administer intellectual property in 2020.

The (Draft) Amendment to be checked and approved puts forward proposals for amendments to the contents in respect of the following nine aspects: name of the current Implementing Regulations of the Chinese Patent Law; patent application documents; patent application, examination and approval procedure; patent right evaluation report and invalidation procedure; fee related items and simplification of procedure; improvement in compulsory licensing system; enforcement of patent right and rewards and remuneration to inventors or creators; protection of patent right; and regulations on international applications entering the national phase.

In order to ensure the implementation of the Chinese Patent Law which has been amended for the third time, the SIPO started preparations for amendments to the Implementing Regulations of the Chinese Patent Law on March, 2007.

According to the report, China ranks number 8 in international trademark applications with 1,585 filings in 2008, which saw an increase of 9.8% over 2007. Among last year’s largest filers, Zhejiang Medicine Company ranks number 8, which has become the first Chinese company that ranks Top Ten Filers.

When submitting an international trademark application, applicants must designate those member countries in which they want their mark to be protected. With 17,829 designations, China remains the most designated country in international trademark applications for the forth consecutive year and enjoys a 6.9% increase in such designations compared to 2007.

By the end of 2008, 9 intermediate courts and 14 grass-root courts in the country have been chosen on a trial basis to set up a tribunal to accept various types IPR cases. At present, 71 intermediate courts have jurisdictions on patent lawsuits and 66 grass-root courts can give a trial to general IPR civil litigations all over China.

The Measures consist of 43 clauses in the six chapters including the General Principles, IPR Records, Impoundment upon Application, Investigation ex officio, Goods Disposal and Fees, and Appendix. It is clearly stated that the customs will protect the logos of the World Expo according to the Measures.

The old version of the Measures of the Customs of the People's Republic of China for the Implementation of the Regulations of IPR Customs Protection of the People's Republic of China issued by Decree No. 114 of the GACC in May 25, 2004 will be abolished simultaneously.

The Measures expressly prescribes the registration, recordal, manufacture, sale and supervision of software products. The homemade software products that meet the relevant standards and have been registered and recorded could enjoy the relevant benefits prescribed by the Policies. With respect to the imported software products that are locally developed and manufactured in China, if the copyright holder and the original development institution could furnish the evidential materials certifying the products are developed in China, could enjoy the benefits prescribed by the Policies after the completion of recordal.

In addition, the Measures also prescribes that the institution developing and manufacturing the software products could directly distribute their own software products. But with respect to the trial version, they shall have clear indication and ought to be provided free of charge. Profitable sale of trial version is forbidden. MIIT will carry out supervision and inspection upon development, manufacture, sale, import and export of the nation’s software products together other relevant government departments.

According to the announcement, WIPO totally received 2,329 complaints on the domain name disputes last year. This represented an 8% increase over 2007. BBC, Yale University, Google and Ebay etc. were all involved in disputes. Besides some large enterprises, the names of some famous sport stars and movie stars were also grabbed in bad faith, even the city name of Madrid in its bid for 2016 Olympic was subject to cybersquatting.

The cybersquatting cases covered a wide variety of sectors. The top one sector for complainant business activity were biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.

In 2008, almost 30% of all the cybersquatting cases were settled without a panel decision. Most of the remainder, the panel decisions favored the complainants. Mr. Francis Gurry, WIPO Director General said that cybersquatting remains a serious issue for trademark holders. He anticipated a sharp increase of the domain name disputes as ICANN was planning to open more extensions (of domain names).

As China Daily reported, MOC stated that Coca Cola’s bid to acquire Huiyuan did not pass the MOC’s anti-monopoly investigation because it would harm or restrict market competition.