New Features of Intellectual Property Protection in China

Recently, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) released "China Patent Investigation Report 2021", pointing out four new features of China's intellectual property protection at this stage.

First, the proportion of patent owners experiencing patent infringement continued to decline.

In 2021, the proportion of owners of Chinese patents experiencing patent infringement is 7.2%, decreasing by 3.6% from the previous year, and is the lowest since 2017. The easy and frequent occurrence of patent infringement in China has been further curbed.

Second, the proportion of patent infringement cases with high compensation in China has increased significantly.

In 2021, 16.3% of China's patent infringement litigation cases were concluded with a compensation of more than 1 million yuan awarded by the court, through court mediation or outof-court settlements, 9.0% higher than the previous year, signifying that the cost of conducting intellectual property infringement keeps increasing in China.

[Amounts of court-awarded compensation, court mediation or out-of-court settlement in Patent Infringement cases]

Third, enterprise patent owners have more diversified ways to defend their rights.

In 2021, 30.8%of patent owners encountering patent infringement in China chose to protect their rights by filing lawsuits to the court, 21.5% by requesting administrative ruling, and 18.6% through arbitration and mediation, an increase of 4.4%, 2.8% and 2.2% over the previous year respectively. Among them, 48.3% of patent owners chose at least two ways to protect their rights, signifying that the diversified mechanism for resolving intellectual property disputes in China is constantly improving. 

Fourth, enterprise patent owners are more proactive in responding to patent infringement.

In 2021, 76.4% of Chinese enterprises took actions to protect their rights after encountering patent infringement, an increase of 2.5% over the previous year and an increase of 11.8% over 2017. In terms of enterprise sizes, the proportions of large, medium and small enterprises taking protection measures were 97.7%, 91.7% and 81.0%, respectively, an increase of 0.5%, 5.9% and 7.1% over the previous year, which shows the awareness of rights protection of small and mediumsized enterprises has been increasing significantly. 

Fifth, the proportion of enterprises encountering overseas intellectual property disputes increases rapidly.

In 2021, 3.0% of Chinese enterprises encountered overseas intellectual property disputes, nearly four times that of the previous year (0.8%). Enterprises of different scales all experienced an increase in that proportion compared with the previous year, among which large-scale enterprises have seen the largest increase, up by 6% year-on-year, reaching 8.7%. At the same time, the survey found that 71.8% of overseas intellectual property disputes occurred in the manufacturing industry. 

Intellectual property rights have increasingly become the focus in international economic and trade frictions and in competitions of industrial and supply chains. 

Source: DEQI Intellectual Property Law Corporation

Editor: IPR Daily-Ann