国内英语新闻:China mulls over law protecting patent owners' rights

BEIJING, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- The protection of patent owners' rights will be strengthened in China, according to a draft amendment that was submitted on Sunday for review at a bimonthly session of the National People's Congress Standing Committee.

The draft amendment of the patent law proposes to increase compensation for patent infringement. The compensation amount can be calculated by multiplying the losses of the obligee, the benefits gained by the infringer, or the licensing fee by one to five.

According to the draft, courts can raise the compensation amount range to 100,000 to 5 million yuan (around 14,400-720,000 U.S. dollars) from the current range of 10,000 to 1 million yuan, if it is hard to calculate the compensation amount.

The draft also stipulates the joint liabilities of network service providers in cases of Internet infringement.