Patent law enforcement by administrative authorities in 2008

In 2008, IP administrations nationwide deepen the special IP law-enforcement actions. From January to December, 2008, local IP administrations totally accept 1,092 cases of patent infringement, and investigate 59 cases of patent imitations and 601 cases of patent counterfeits. The IP administrations nationwide totally dispatch 17,056 law enforcers to inspect commercial sites for 7,671 times, investigate 2,110,822 commodities, transfer 21 cases to departments such as the public security departments, accept 11 cases transferred from other departments, conduct 327 inter-departmental law-enforcement collaborations and 262 inter-regional law-enforcement collaborations.

The characteristics of the patent law-enforcement work in 2008 are as follows:

I. The number of cases shows the trend of going up compared with previous years. The number of cases of patent infringement accepted in 2008 increases by 10.8 percent compared with 2007, and the number of cases of patent imitations investigated also rises by 84.4 percent during the same period of time.

II. Law-enforcement collaboration goes up. Compared with 2007, the numbers of inter-departmental law-enforcement collaborations and inter-regional law-enforcement collaborations grow by 14.7 percent and 12.4 percent respectively.

III. Disputes of patent infringement account for the major part of all the cases of patent disputes. Of the 1,126 cases of patent disputes accepted in 2008, 1,092 are disputes of patent infringement, much higher than the 34 cases of other patent dispute.

IV. Cases of patent infringement mainly involve patents of model utility and design. Of the 1,092 cases accepted, 20 percent involve patent of invention, 40 percent are patent of model utility and 40 percent are patent of design.

V. The claimers of patent infringement disputes are mainly from inside China. All the cases accepted involve 1,042 claimers from the Chinese mainland, accounting for 95.4 percent of the total.

VI. Cases of patent disputes other than patent infringements are mainly disputes of right ownership. In the 34 cases of other patent disputes, 30 are disputes of patent application rights and the ownership of patent rights.

VII. The proportion of patent passing off is comparatively small, only 59 throughout the year.

VIII. Law-enforcement activities are more active. A total of 17,056 law enforcers are involved in law-enforcement activities in 2008. The number of commercial sites inspected grows by 50 percent compared with 2007, and the number of commodities inspected also rises by 38 percent.

(Source：SIPO.gov.cn)

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