China Beijing Olympic Games

(BEIJING, May 8) – Patent submissions in the Chinese capital increased to 31,680 in 2007, breaking the 30,000-mark for the first time, the chief of the Beijing Municipal Intellectual Property Office, Liu Zhengang, said on Thursday.

The performance was up 19.3 percent over 2006 and included 18,763 patent submissions for inventions, which accounted for 59.2 percent of the total and ranked Beijing first across the nation. There were also 51,383 trademark submissions, of which 14,893 were approved. Of these, 295 were for famous trademarks citywide; 99 were for Beijing brand names; and 61 were for national brand names.

Liu was joined at the press conference by officials from municipal agencies in charge of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, including the Municipal Copyright Bureau, the Industrial and Commercial Bureau, the Municipal High People’s Court and the Beijing Custom house.

Other areas indicating progress were the publishing, where authors registered copyrights for 110,593 works, and software, where 3,334 copyrights were registered, making Beijing number one in these areas.

Beijing also registered copyrights for the design of the medals, ticketing symbols, torch design, and torch relay slogan for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and pictograms of the Paralympic Games, Liu added.

The city’s industrial and commercial authorities have taken special measures to protect the exclusive rights of the Olympic symbols, investigated and treated 95 infringement cases and confiscated a total of 1.03 million yuan in infringement earnings. Law-enforcement units have targeted 30 key streets and 38 spots to crack down on fake products.

Beijing and the Olympic co-host cities have signed agreements to jointly carry out law-enforcement in this regard. Beijing and BOCOG have made joint efforts to reward people who report offences.

The city will continue to communicate with and educate the public as well as cooperate with the media to boost IPR protection, Liu said.