The Status of Intellectual Property Protection in Hangzhou City in 2015

In 2015, Hangzhou city carried out in depth innovation-driven development strategy and "National IPR strategy". Grasping the chance of national IPR demonstration city construction, Hangzhou city improved IPR policy system, innovated IPR managing system, improved IPR creating quality, strengthened IPR protection and application, and promoted IPR work to progress smoothly.

I.               System Construction

In 2015, Hangzhou municipal government and relevant departments successively formulated multiple policy, measures and regulations of boosting IPR protection, so as to brought policy guidance into full play and comprehensively promote IPR creation, application, and protection and managing capability.

Hangzhou municipal government formulated "the Implementation Opinions on accelerating IPR powerful city of General Office of Hangzhou Municipal People's Government", proposed to construct an IPR powerful city, improve IPR legal environment, promote IPR fundamental capacity and brought into full play the role of IPR mechanism that boosts economy, society and culture. Hangzhou municipal government formulated "the Procedure of Patent Special Funds of Hangzhou City", playing the guiding and leading role of special funds, stimulating independent innovation and providing financial support for IPR creation, application, protection and management.

The Municipal Copyright Office formulated and issued "Implementing Plan of Promoting State-owned Enterprises to Use Authorized Software in Hangzhou City (2015-2020)", comprehensively promoting the work of using authorized software in State-owned enterprises in the whole city.

The Municipal Forestry and Water Conservancy Department formulated and implemented "the Opinions on Strengthening the management of Woods Seedling Quality", strengthening the whole process supervision of woods seeds and seedling, changing previous way of only supervising production to the whole process supervision of production, circulation and application.

II.            Achievement of Intellectual Property

1.     Patent

In 2015, Hangzhou had 60,839 patent application, growing 25.26% over the previous year of 2014, including 17,777 invention patents, growing 20.29% over the previous year. The whole city had 46,245 patent grants, growing 37.85% over the previous year, including 8,296 invention patents, growing 49.42% over the previous year. Hangzhou also had 30,280 valid invention patents, growing 25.9% over the previous year.

17 patents of the city won 17th China Patent Award, including 1 Gold Award, 14 Distinction Award and 3 Excellent Design Patent Award. Hangzhou Municipal Intellectual Property Office won the Outstanding Organizer Award of 17th China Patent Award.

2.     Trademark  

By the end of 2015, Hangzhou had 190,000 valid registered trademarks and 26 certification marks (2 newly added), including 22 geographical indication certification marks (1 newly added) and 32 collective trademarks (1 newly added). Hangzhou also had 121 administratively accredited well-known trademarks  (14 newly added), 573 Zhejiang provincial famous trademarks  (44 newly added), 934 Hangzhou municipal famous trademarks (111 newly added), 8 Zhejiang provincial brand bases (1 newly added), and 91 brand guidance stations.

At the China Trademark Gold Award ceremony held by State Administration for Industry and Commerce and World IPR Organization, Hangzhou enterprise -- Wanxiang Group -- won "China Trademark Innovation Award", and it is the sole enterprise winning the reputation in Zhejiang province.

3.     Copyright

Hangzhou city actively expanded the range of works registration and protection, and safeguarded legal rights and interests of copyright obligee, and 3132 works were registered in 2015. The Municipal Copyright Office participated in the second session of China Qingdao Northeastern Asia Copyright Creativity Quality Goods Fair, and the two works won a gold prize and a silver prize respectively.

III.        IPR Law Enforcement

In 2015, all IPR law-enforcing departments and all district (city) governments strengthened law-enforcing force, enhanced the cooperation between departments and carried out in depth "Escorting" special action and other actions of IPR law enforcement and guarding, obtaining good result.

1. Administrative law enforcement

(1) The Municipal Intellectual Property Office played the role of IPR work leading group, jointly with the municipal administration for industry and commerce, copyright department and district (city) IPR offices, carried out IPR examination in beauty parlors, drug stores and supermarkets in the city, propagated patent related law and regulations, investigated and prosecuted fake patents and the products with nonstandard patent mark. The Office totally carried out special actions for 4 times and examined nearly 10000 goods of all kinds on the spot. The Office placed 891 patent cases on file including 20 fake patents, 864 infringement disputes and 7 other cases, and case closing rate reached 99%.

(2) The Municipal Copyright Office strengthened the check on the places around schools, and strengthened the special check in the business operating publication, especially textbooks and learning materials. The Office strengthened the check on cultural malls and book wholesale markets, laid the emphasis on the business selling children's publications, textbooks and reference materials, and seriously checked the sources of publications and relevant evidence to prevent illegal publications to enter the market. The Office seized and disposed 7 training organs using pirated teaching materials, showing good warning effect.

(3) The Municipal Market Supervision Administration carried out the special IPR protecting action of "Red shield escort", investigated and prosecuted 513 cases of trademark infringement involving RMB 13,453,300 and confiscated RMB 7,931,200, including 139 cases related to foreign affairs and 13 cases transferred to judicial organs.

(4) Hangzhou Municipal Quality Supervision Inspection Department dispatched 18870 person-times of law enforcement officers, checked 7539 production and processing enterprises, investigated and prosecuted 557 cases including 18 cases of on-the-spot penalty,  ordered rectification of 175 cases, smashed 14 dens, investigated and prosecuted 160,100 illegal goods, confiscated and turned  national treasury RMB 13,030,600, accepted and heard 12128 cases of complaints (tip-off), involving goods value of RMB 4,691,000 and saved RMB 451,900 of direct economic losses for consumers and enterprises. The Department actively planned special actions for landing investigation and prosecution, and carried out online special enforcement action on garment, auto parts, electric appliance and food. By investigating the online sales of enterprise and conducting multi-channel control of E-commerce product quality, the Department put 14 cases on record involving goods value of RMB 134,500 and confiscated RMB 179,700.

(5) The Municipal Forestry and Water Conservancy Department carried out special action of administrative enforcement on woods seedling. The Department conducted field law enforcement at main production base and trade distributing center of woods seedling, took 83 batch-times of sample examination of precious trees, colored trees and economy forest seedlings, and found no production and operation of counterfeit or inferior seeds and seedlings.

(6) Municipal Department of Agriculture carried out the examination in part of seeds market in the whole city. With emphasis on rice and maize, the Department examined the behavior of violating variety rights and "fake plate" producing and selling infringed varieties, and propagated the common sense, regulation and policy of IPR such as new variety right and geographical indications, Effectively resisting counterfeit and inferior products and further improving a good IPR order and market environment.

(7) Hangzhou Customs continuously kept the high pressure on IPR infringement. In 2015, the Customs checked and detained 6,929,900 infringement-suspected goods in 5680 batch-times worth RMB 19,952,300, successfully protected 768 intelligence property rights of 24 countries and regions. The Customs carried out a special enforcement action of post-channel IPR protection and strengthened the liaison with post administration in Zhejiang province. By information exchange and coordinated investigation of cases for headstream governing, the Customs seized 57 cases of suspected infringement and 4793 goods in 2042 batches. The Customs actively deployed "Fresh Breeze" action in Customs Surveillance Zone to strictly strike the infringement in exported goods to Africa, Arabia, Latin-America, countries and regions along "the Belt and Road", and took IPR protective measures for 537 batch-times accumulatively and seized 6,250,000 goods worth RMB 19,350,000. The case of exported infringed and fake drug solved by Hangzhou Customs was appraised as "2014 National Customs IPR Protection Classic Case" and "Two laws Joining Classic Case" by High quality brand protection committee of Foreign Investment Association. Hangzhou Customs won the second session of "China Trademark Gold Award -- Trademark Protection Award" and became the sole department to win the reputation in national Customs.

2. Judicial Work

(1) The municipal system of public security investigated 121 cases of suspected IPR crime, solved 86 cases, captured more than 100 suspected criminals, and transferred 50 cases to prosecution and 7 cases to administrative departments. The system smashed 5 dens of making, storing and selling counterfeit goods, seized more than 200,000 counterfeit and inferior goods and more than 70,000 fake marks and labels, In which “8.25” counterfeit NBA case solved by Hangzhou municipal public security organ was appraised as 2015 QBPC classic case of High Quality Brand Protection Committee of China Association of Foreign Investment Enterprises.

(2) The Municipal Procuratorate accepted the submission for arrest of 37 suspects in 30 IPR infringements, including approval of arresting 17 persons in 14 cases and transferred 64 persons in 40 cases for prosecution, and prosecuted 53 persons in 31 cases. The cases of prosecution comprised 14 persons in 5 cases of counterfeit registered trademarks, 33 persons in 24 case of illegally making and selling illegally made registered trademark label, 5 persons in 1 case of violating copyright, and 1 person in 1 case of violating business secret.

(3) Hangzhou Municipal Intermediate People's Court accepted and heard IPR civil 1076 cases of first instance and 466 cases of second instance concluded IPR civil 1125 cases of first instance and 457 cases of second instance. The above-mentioned cases of first instance comprised 484 cases of patent infringement, 503 cases of copyrights infringement, 56 cases of trademark infringement, and 24 cases of other disputes. The Court also accepted and heard 63 IPR criminal cases of first instance, including 3 cases of counterfeit registered trademark, 25 cases of selling the goods with counterfeit registered trademark, 1 case of violating copyright, 6 cases of making and selling inferior goods and 28 cases of making and selling fake drugs. The Court also accepted and heard 10 IPR criminal  cases of second instance, including 1 case of violating business secret, 2 cases of counterfeit registered trademark, 3 cases of making and selling fake drugs, and 4 cases of making and selling inferior goods.

The trademark dispute case of British famous luxury brand Burberry Co. accusing Guangzhou Boya International Trade Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Chenya International Trade Co., Ltd., Xiang Zhaobao violating trademark was appraised as the best case of 2014-2015 IPR Protection by High Quality Brand Protection Committee of China Association of Foreign Investment Enterprises.

3.     Exhibition Protection

In 2015, the IPR-related departments in the city jointly strengthened IPR protection in exhibition business. The Municipal Intellectual Property Office carried out exhibition enforcement work jointly with Market Supervision Administration and the Municipal Copyright Bureau. The Office laid emphasis on Industry Expo, Hangzhou cultural and Creative Industry Expo and China pen industry expo of Hangzhou International Animation Festival, and resided in these expositions for enforcement in the field.

IV.          Mechanism and Ability Constructio

In 2015, Hangzhou city smoothly passed the examination and check of the first batch of demonstration city by State Intellectual Property Office, and continuously promoted the construction of the demonstration city. Hangzhou city actively innovated working thought on IPR protection and obtained new progress in the construction of mechanism and ability.

The Right Assistant Center of the Municipal Intellectual Property Office listened to more than 300 telephone calls of various complaint and consultancy, accepted and heard more than 100 rights-related cases and patent lawsuit-mediation joining cases from the municipal intermediate court. The China Hangzhou (Pen-making) IPR Quick Assistant Center accepted and heard 519 patent applications from local pen-making enterprises, settled 182 patent infringement disputes (registered 4 cases on file), including 21 cases transferred to courts for prosecution, 18 cases of mediation, and listened to more than 100 telephone calls of various complaint and consultancy. Implementation of IPR protection in E-commerce field The Office set up the mechanism of exchange with Zhejiang Taobao Network Co. Ltd. and Alibaba Network Co. Ltd. As far as any case of complaint related to the above two websites, once verified, the Office would directly notify the websites to draw complained goods from the shelf and supervision of the websites for relevant prevention and control.

The Municipal Market Supervision Administration seriously carried out "the Implementation Opinions on Further Promoting Trademark and Brand Strategy", Supported and guided trademark registration of the brands of modern service industry, characteristic agro-products, strategic emerging Industries and online economy, and strengthened the cultivation of independent brands. The Administration especially organized training for constructing trademark and brand demonstration, requested relevant departments of all districts, counties (cities) to actively report to local governments, regarded the implementation of trademark and brand strategy as important task of development, formulated and promulgated relevant policies in combination with actual condition, and conducted aim examination of implementing trade and brand strategy in townships and streets.

The Municipal Forestry and Water Conservancy Department strengthened the patrolling over the operation of main woods seeds and seedlings in flower and seedling markets, realizing total covering, and strengthened the in-process and post-supervision of licensing matters and conducted the in-process and post-supervision for 160 times in the whole city.

Hangzhou Municipal Quality Supervision Bureau continuously improved the construction of supervision and coordination platform for E-commerce products, and further improved the mechanism of "finding online, supervision and sample checking, tracing the source, landing investigation, and credit administration". In 2015, the Bureau supervised online products for 3258 batch-times, pushed coordinated quality inspection information for 2500 batch-times, and successfully seized 5 cases of classic anti-infringement enforcement: fake Hikvision, LV, Sakura home appliances, Canon supplies and Swarovski crystals. Cooperated with mainstream E-commerce platform of Alibaba Group and relied on the national E-commerce product quality risk monitoring center, the Bureau established "standardization strategy office" and "quality big data application lab" to jointly promote the construction of E-commerce standardization system, E-commerce product quality risk monitoring treatment and product quality inspection and testing.

Hangzhou Customs actively guided Zhejiang province to register 1003 items in General Customs Administration, making registration quantity and the newly registered ranked first in China. Hangzhou Customs implemented "Several Opinions of Standardizing the Report of IPR Infringement in Export & Import Goods Formulated by Hangzhou Customs and Ningbo Customs" jointly issued by itself and Ningbo Customs, defining the standard procedure to accept and hear a report of IPR infringed goods and strengthening the cooperation of enforcement on IPR infringed goods between two Customs. In 2015, Hangzhou Customs totally accepted and heard reporting clews of IPR infringed goods for 33 times, and seized 891,000 suspected IPR infringed goods. Hangzhou Customs strengthened the enforcement cooperation with public security organs at all levels in Zhejiang province, and improved the cooperative mechanism between two laws. Hangzhou Customs reported 28 clews of suspected IPR infringement cases to Zhejiang Provincial Public Security Department, and the public security organs successfully solved 5 cases.

The system of municipal public security carried out nonscheduled training and interchanges against new situations and new problems in handling IPR crime cases, and promoted the efficiency of work. The system also strengthened the cooperation between various police classifications, and further enhanced the mechanism of cooperated action of cigarette and market supervision administrations, clearing the cooperative channels between information communication and report, accreditation and testing, and joint enforcement. The system strengthened the cooperation between police and enterprises, particularly the famous enterprises, independent brands of local leading enterprises and pillar industry benchmarking brand enterprises in jurisdiction areas, going all out to escort the development of "Zhejiang business" and normal operation of service enterprises. In accordance with the rapid development of online business in the city, the system carried out special action of striking counterfeit crimes in Internet field, checked 101 clews involving 650 accounts of online shops.

Hangzhou Municipal Intermediate People's Court set up Qingshan Lake Science & Technology Town IPR circuit court to support the economic development in Lin'an region, reduce obligee's cost to protect legal rights, and specify the economic order of market. The Court actively participated in the preparation of E-commerce litigation guidance center, set up the column of E-commerce litigation guidance center, visited E-commerce enterprises and industrial parks in its  jurisdiction area, investigated their request and responded their doubt in E-commerce cases. Jointly with three grass-roots courts in West-lake district, Yuhang district and Binjiang district, Hangzhou Municipal Intermediate People's Court organized E-commerce online court, and realized online handling in the links of investigation, mediation, court hearing and judgment. The Court invited the representatives of Hangzhou municipal bar association to participate in the forum of "IPR trial and lawsuit", discussed the issues related to IPR protection and lawsuit in the city, and promoted benign interaction between litigation agency and judicial judgment in IPR cases.

Propaganda and Training

In 2015, Hangzhou City highly valued the fostering of IPR social cultural atmosphere and promoted IPR sense of the whole society. Taking the opportunity of "4.26 World IPR Day", Hangzhou city published the white book of "The Status of Intellectual Property Protection in Hangzhou City in 2014" at Hangzhou Web, China Hangzhou Web and Hangzhou IPR Office Web.

1.     IPR propaganda

During the period of "4.26 World IPR Day", Hangzhou Municipal Intellectual Property Office distributed publicity materials at busy streets and large bazaars and carried out volunteer IPR propaganda. In addition, the Office published relevant policies on relevant media such as Hangzhou Daily and Qianjiang Evening, playing the role of traditional media, and encouraging social community to actively participate in and report the patent infringement and further enhancing the IPR protection in the city. The Office also played the role of large outdoor advertisement by propagating in parts of No. 2 subway stations. The Office also signed volunteer agreement with China Measures Institute and Hangzhou Normal University, and organized a 100 volunteer team in each university respectively to carry out patent propagation, training and mining in parks, management committees, incubators, communities and universities, and more than 400 person-times took part in the campaign.

The Municipal Copyright Bureau compiled the third volume of pamphlet "Copyright Expert", organized propagating campaign of "4.26 World IPR Day", subscribed "China Copyrights" and "China Press and Publication" for enterprises, and issued 1000 books of "Documentation for Party and Government Bodies, Enterprises and Institutions to Use Authorized Software" to propagate software authorization.

The Municipal Forestry and Water Conservancy Department carried out routine supervision of seeds and seedlings, special action, bringing forestry technology to the countryside, and square service, energetically conducting propagation of "Seed Law of the People's Republic of China" and "the Procedure for Zhejiang Province to Implement Seed Law of the People's Republic of China". In combination with the activity of "12.4 National Constitution and Legal Publicity Day", the Department carried out the action of new seed law propagation and law enforcement at Xixi flower and bird market, introducing relevant contents of the new seed law to market operating business and issuing propagating pamphlets. The Department compiled and issued 2800 propagating pamphlets of "Selected Documents of Forestry Seedling Law, Regulation and Policy" and "Seedling is first in forestry and quality is first in seedling".

Hangzhou Municipal Department of Agriculture visited many agricultural enterprises, and starting from popularizing IPR, propagated the law and regulation of "Intellectual Property Law", "Regulations for the protection of new varieties of plants" and "Trademark Law", and guided enterprises to conduct IPR related application such as new variety right, trademark and geographical indications and protect their rights.

Taking the chance of "4.26 IPR Protection Propagation Week" and "8.8 Customs Legal Propagation Day", Hangzhou Customs carried out propagation to foreigners in multiple modes. The webs such as "Xinhua Web", "China News Online Service" and "Chinapic Web" reported the campaign with the theme of the IPR protection. More than 10 mainstream media above provincial levels such as "People's Daily Overseas Edition", "Economic Information Daily" and "Legal System Daily" reported the "Fresh Breeze Action" news release conference and classic cases in the Customs Surveillance Zone. The media of CCTV, Central People's Broadcasting Station and Zhejiang Satellite TV also reported this campaign of IPR protection in Hangzhou.

The system of municipal public security expanded propagation in enterprises and communities, visited major enterprises in jurisdiction area, learned IPR establishment, development, popularization and protection in these enterprises and found entry points of escort for them. The system brought into full play the propagation channels of newspaper and television as well as Internet media, carrying out propagation and preventive activities. The system also organized IPR propagation jointly with administrative enforcement departments using square activities, and promoted all people's consciousness of IPR protection and fake identifying ability.

Hangzhou Municipal Intermediate People's Court carried out IPR Propaganda Week Campaign, Compiled serial IPR judicial protection pamphlets of "IPR and Life", and published 2015 Top-ten cases of IPR judicial protection. To promote the public trial of IPR cases, the Court held a public hearing of "Didi trademark right dispute" case of broad social impact by living video broadcast in official microblog, opened a precedent of living broadcast of trial in court microblog in the province. IPR (Fenshui) circuit court held a public hearing of two cases of violating design patent, pealing the first hammer of circuit trial of the Court.

IPR Training

Hangzhou Municipal Intellectual Property Office held a series of training of "patent pledge financing", "remedies for enterprise patent infringement", "IPR protection knowledge forum", and "Zhejiang University - Hangzhou City President Summit Forum on the Future of IPR Competition", and more than 1000 person-times participated in the training. The Office continuously implemented the training of junior and semi-senior technical position qualification for patent management series. In 2015, 120 persons participated in the examination of patent engineer position.

Hangzhou Copyright Bureau organized 4 training classes of copyright knowledge, and more than 200 persons in enterprises participated in the training. The Bureau also organized 2 training classes of law enforcement, 1 training class of middle level backbone in cultural market, 1 training class of comprehensive enforcement information work in cultural market, and 1 training class of statisticians in cultural market in the whole city, and 430 person-times participated in the training.

Hangzhou Municipal Market Supervision Administration held a tutorial training class for famous trademark enterprises. In April, the municipal administration held a 2015 tutorial training for municipal famous trademark enterprises jointly with the municipal trademark society, and in June held a 2015 tutorial training for provincial famous trademark enterprises.

Hangzhou Municipal Department of Agriculture, in combination with “4.26 IPR Day” campaign, held IPR knowledge training class and invited lawyer Chen Guojiang to propagate the law and regulation related to IPR protection to parts of agricultural technical personnel of the whole city. According to the condition that the license of most certified seed production and operation business will expire soon and need apply for new license, the Department held a training class of seed operation administration, and more than 40 persons participated in the training.

Hangzhou Municipal Quality Supervision Bureau organized work training for 12365 complaint and tip-offs, enhanced grass-roots staff's ability of understanding and handling 12365 complaints and tip-offs, and improved the skill and level to handle the complaints and tip-offs.