CRI听力:China "stronger on IPR protection": experts

Tuesday, June 5th, marks the 10th anniversary of a document issued by the Chinese government to upgrade the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) as a national strategy.

China issued the Outline of the National Intellectual Property Strategy on June 5th, 2008.

Since then, Chinese authorities say they've made significant progress in IPR protection, creating a fair, stable and transparent business environment.

Experts from China and the UK suggest that a decade on, China is now a leader in intellectual property rights' protection.

Observers are also suggesting IPR protection, which has been a long process, is one of the keys to helping China become the world's second largest economy.

"First of all, our laws and regulations have gradually improved. Secondly, in terms of law enforcement and trials, we have set up courts specializing in intellectual property rights, which shows that we are even more advanced than the UK, since the UK has not established its own IPR courts yet," says Wang Ping, researcher on public procurement with the University of Nottingham.

Since the issuing of the Outline of the National Intellectual Property Strategy, laws and regulations around issues such as patents, trademark, anti-monopoly, and law against unfair competition have been updated.

Despite this, Wang Ping says authorities in China have to keep on top of changes to IPR.

"Policies are just like coins, they have two sides, that's why we call them "double-edged swords." As such, on the one hand, when enacting the policies, we must consider potential challenges and loopholes, and take measures to deal with them. On the other hand, in terms of the implementation, we need a professional, powerful team with high public trust," says Wang Ping.

Stephen Perry, chairman of Britain's 48 Group Club - a UK advocacy group for trade with China - says Beijing needs to take the lead in technological innovation and patent applications.

"When I met President Xi jInping, that was the point he made. We want to get beyond just being a little bit better off than we were; we want to be a modern advanced country. And to do that, China must innovate, and the "Made in China 2025" strategy is the cornerstone of that. It's about China making a decision that it will be at the forefront of technological development, that its companies will be the most progressive companies in the world together with other western countries," says Perry.

Stats from the World Intellectual Property Organization show that 48,882 international patent applications were filed by Chinese companies in 2017, coming in second in the world behind only the United States.