It is reported that, in 2012, provincial local Intellectual Property Offices of China generally enhanced their IP enforcement: historically law enforcement provinces, significant breakthrough in the central provinces, general enhancement in the west and northeast regions.

According to the report, 687,700 pieces of works registration were registered across China in 2012, with an increase of 49.05% from 2011. Beijing ranked first in the national ranking. By the types of works registered, most were photography, text, art, film and television works, while a great breakthrough has been made in registration of audio and video products. In 2012, an amount of 139,200 pieces of software works were registered in China, with an increase of 27.33%, and Beijing, Guangdong, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu were among the top five. Among them, the most prominent growth was from cloud computing software registration, with 1946 cases registered last year, an increase of 118.65%. In 2012, the number of copyright registration concerning each type of works increased dramatically, fully reflecting the significant improvement of cultural creativity, the growing public awareness of copyright continues and the increasing copyright-related demand of enterprises on enhancing copyright protection, utilization and management, as well as financing with the copyright as a core asset.

The draft revision of the Copyright Law submitted to the State Council by the State Copyright Bureau has specified the legal effects of copyright registration, stipulating that “the copyright registration documents are the preliminary evidences of the registered particulars".

The statistics shows that, in 2012, China handled 2,051,000 cases of three kinds of patent applications, with a year-on-year increase of 26%; and 1,255,000 patent were granted, with a year-on-year growth of 31%. Among them, 535,000 applications were for domestic invention patents, accounting for 81.9% of the total applications, increasing by 28.7%; 118,000 applications for foreign invention patents, accounting for 18.1% of the total, increasing by 6.2%. Among the domestic applications, 428,000 were employee applications, accounting for 80.0%, with a year-on-year growth of 32.1%; and among the domestic employee invention patent applications, 316,000 were enterprise applications, accounting for 73.8%, with a year-on-year growth of 36.6%. In 2012, 144,000 cases were granted for domestic invention patents, accounting for 66.4% of the total number of granted invention, up 28.0%; and 73,000 cases for foreign invention patents, accounting for 33.6% of the total, up 22.6%. In 2012, China handled 20,000 international patent applications filed through the Patent Cooperation Treaty "(PCT), with a year-on-year growth of 14%.

Tian said that the IPR fast enforcement pilot project was promoted based on the IPR fast enforcement in Zhongshan, Guangdong province last year. In addition, the complaints-reporting scheme for enforcement was strengthened and an effective platform was actively built to support law enforcement.

AQSIQ official in charge said that, in 2012, they took away 9,243 factories, investigated and handled 2,084 big cases, and transferred 1,687 cases to the police.

According to the report, in daily routine work, the national quality inspection sector has enhanced the inspection on imported infringement and counterfeit and shoddy goods. In November 2012 alone, 345 batches of imported food and eight batches of imported cosmetics of poor quality were inspected, failing to meet the substandard quality and safety indicators, among which 18 categories of products, mainly involving special food, pastries and biscuits and wines from 32 countries or regions, and the substandard cosmetics involving skin cosmetics, hair cosmetics and other cosmetics from four countries or regions. These imported food and cosmetics were returned or destroyed, which did not enter the domestic market.

The State Council has decided to modify the Regulations of PRC on Protection of New Varieties of Plants as follows：

1. Clause 3 of Article 39 is amended as: "The agriculture and forestry administrative departments of people's government at or above the provincial level can order an infringer to stop infringement and confiscate the illegal income and propagating material of plant varieties to protect public interests in handling the variety rights infringement cases in line with their authorities; as for the cases for value of more than 50,000, a fine of 1-5 times of the value could be imposed; as for no value or the value of less than 50,000, a fine of less than 250,000 could be imposed based on its seriousness and circumstances. "

2. Article 40 is amended as: "As for the counterfeit varieties, the agriculture and forestry administrative departments of people's government at or above the county level can order to stop the counterfeiting and confiscate the illegal income and propagating material of plant varieties in line with their respective authorities; as for the value of more than 50,000, a fine of 1-5 times of the value could be imposed; as for no value or the value of less than 50,000, a fine of less than 250,000 could be imposed based on its seriousness and circumstances; where the circumstance is serious enough to constitute a crime, the infringer be held criminally liable. "

The State Council has decided to make the following amendments of the "Regulations for Implementation of Copyright Law of PRC":

Article 36 is amended as follows: "As for the infringement specified in Article 48 of the Copyright Law, which harms the public interest and its illegal business turnover is more than 50,000, the copyright administration department can impose a fine of 1-5 times of such illegal turnover; as for no amount of illegal turnover or the illegal turnover is less than 50,000, the copyright administration department can impose a fine of less than 250,000 in accordance with the seriousness of the case."

The State Council has decided to modify the "Regulations on Information Network Transmission Right Protection" as follows:

The " impose of a fine of less than 100,000" in Article 18 and Article 19 is modified as: "As for illegal business turnover of more than 50,000, a fine of 1-5 times of such illegal turnover could be imposed; as for no amount of illegal turnover or the illegal turnover is less than 50,000, a fine of less than 250,000 could be imposed in light of the seriousness and circumstances of the case.

The State Council has decided to modify the "Regulations of PRC on Computer Software Protection" as follows:

Clause 2 of Article 24 is amended as: "The act of the first or second item of the previous clause may be imposed a fine of 100 Yuan each, or 1-5 times of the goods value; the act of the third, fourth or fifth item of the previous clause may be imposed a fine of less than 200,000 Yuan."

At the meeting, Tian Lipu and Friedrich Lvde Le exchanged their opinions extentively on bilateral cooperation such as the construction of review expressway by two offices, inspector training, patent information services, corporate intellectual property exchanges and mutual visits, and the cooperation program between the two offices in 2013.

Over years, Unitalen has been focused on providing intellectual property solution package for clients to help them solve their structural problems in IP management. Many intellectual property lawsuits represented by Unitalen were elected as annual top ten intellectual property cases. The remarkable expertise and professionalism of Unitalen lawyers have won a lot of praise from clients. And this is the reason why the attorney from Unitalen was elected as the "Annual Intellectual Property Lawyer". Attorneys of Unitalen have always been adhering to the principle of "considering every issue from the client’s perspective and dedicating to every detail of the client", continuing to move forward and strive for their own contribution to the client and the cause of the national Intellectual Property.

In afternoon of February 1, 2013, the Beijing Lawyers Association held a meeting to award outstanding intellectual property lawyers and outstanding real estate lawyers, at which Li Yongbo from Unitalen Attorneys at Law won the honorary title of Beijing Outstanding Intellectual Property Lawyer., The president, vice president and Deputy Secretary-General of Beijing Lawyers Association, as well as 40 award-winning lawyers, attended the meeting.

Li Yongbo has extensive experience in intellectual property litigation. The French LAFITE(LAFITE) and JAC trademark infringements and unfair competition cases represented by him were selected as one of the "2011 China Top Ten Typical Intellectual Property Cases" by the Supreme People's Court. He helped his client to obtain a compensation of RMB22 million in the Ashland Inc. (ASHLAND) patent infringement and trade secret case, and a compensation of 2 million in the French Louis Vuitton (LV) trademark infringement and unfair competition case, which was selected as one of the “2011 Top 10 IPR Civil Cases" by the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court; the series of litigations such as French Montagut and British Tensar represented by him are very typical and have great social impact, among which the Montagut v. Guangzhou Mengjiao Gongzi case was selected as one of the "2006 Top 10 Intellectual Property Cases" by the Beijing High People's Court.