Over the past 40 years of reform and opening-up, intellectual property in China has achieved great development, great leap and great promotion, and made important progress in legislation, creation, protection and application. "The intellectual property system was born from the technological development of the market economy, and at the same time it thrived with technological changes." Xu Meiling, assistant professor of the Law School of the University of International Business and Economics, director of the Intellectual Property Finance Research Center and deputy secretary-general of the Market Supervision Research Institute, said: "In the era of digital economy, the creation and dissemination of knowledge products have been extended to digitalization and intelligence, and data intellectual property rights have received more and more attention."
Support social and economic development
On December 28th, 2023, Beijing Shengzhe Technology Company (hereinafter referred to as "Shengzhe"), a national high-tech enterprise in the field of Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, received a precious New Year’s Day gift. The police station near the bridge of Dianjun Branch of Yichang City Public Security Bureau in Hubei Province sent a thank-you letter, expressing sincere gratitude for Shengzhe’s technical support ability to respond in time that month, assist the police to find the lost patients within 2 hours, and save lives in time. And this is just one of thousands of lives saved by Sheng Zhe.
The community security service in Beijing Feijia Village, the fire-fighting renovation of Jokhang Temple in Tibet, the application of intelligent security system to help Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, and the escort of the Yangtze River to ban fishing … By using technologies such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and cloud computing, the urban intelligent security awareness service provided by Shengzhe has landed in more than 160 cities in 25 provinces across the country, providing a powerful scientific and technological force to protect people’s lives and property, improve their quality of life, protect the Millennium historical and cultural heritage, and improve the ecological environment.
The city-level intelligent fire warning service of Beijing Shengzhe Technology Company has been fully deployed in Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple and Jokhang Temple in Tibet to protect the cultural treasures passed down for thousands of years.
In the process of industrial digitalization, Shengzhe has better empowered thousands of industries with innovation and technology through self-developed narrow-band Internet of Things technology. Globally, Shengzhe has customers in 65 countries and regions, and continues to help Cambodia, South Africa and other "Belt and Road" countries to build smart cities. In addition, Shengzhe has successively built computing centers in Yichang, Hubei, Xining, Qinghai and other places, deeply participated in the layout of national computing power, and set a national benchmark for new quality productivity.
All these achievements are based on the solid foundation that Shengzhe has devoted himself to cutting-edge science and technology. Li Jiaxi, CMO of Shengzhe, said that innovation is the first driving force for development. Since its establishment, the company has always attached great importance to building the core competitiveness of enterprise technology, products and services through the layout of independent intellectual property rights, and has more than 100 independent intellectual property rights.
Digital economy is an important direction of future economic development and one of the most active fields at present. In recent years, China National Intellectual Property Administration has given full play to the function of the intellectual property system, actively helped to cultivate new kinetic energy for economic development, and promoted the creation of new advantages in the digital economy. Heng Fuguang, spokesperson and director of the office of China National Intellectual Property Administration, said that the next step is to speed up the construction of data intellectual property protection rules, promote the development, opening and circulation of data, and promote the deep integration of digital economy and real economy, so as to empower economic development and enrich people’s lives through extensive and profound digital changes.
Li Jiaxi is very much looking forward to this. She said that big data technology is one of the core competitiveness of Shengzhe Technology, and urban digital economy construction and digital governance cannot be separated from massive data. "Under the protection of intellectual property rights, data can flow reasonably and be fully utilized, and enterprises can dig deeper into the value of data elements and serve urban governance, social livelihood, ecological protection and many other fields with digital applications and industrial ecological operation capabilities."
Cultivate new kinetic energy for developing new quality productive forces
In 2024, the Government Work Report clearly required "strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights and formulating policies and measures to promote the transformation and application of scientific and technological achievements."
"Intellectual property is a catalyst for stimulating innovation, an accelerator for economic development, an important support for high-quality development, and plays a dual role in important institutional supply and technology supply." Heng Fuguang said, "We should give full play to the role of the patent system in stimulating innovation and the role of technology supply of patents themselves, promote key core technology research, strengthen the transformation and application of patents, accelerate the transformation of scientific and technological achievements into real productive forces, and cultivate new kinetic energy for developing new quality productive forces."
Xu Meiling is also very concerned about the transformation of intellectual property achievements. "In the institutional logic of intellectual property rights, innovation and competition coexist, protection and communication are equally important, and empowerment and limitation exist together." She emphasized that the purpose of giving exclusive rights to intellectual products is not only to stimulate and protect innovation, but also to avoid innovation achievements being "suppressed", thus promoting them to benefit subsequent improvement and overall social welfare. "The transformation of intellectual property achievements is an important channel for the realization of this system goal."
Xu Meiling said that the transformation of data intellectual property achievements and Industry-University-Research cooperation play an important role in promoting scientific and technological innovation and economic and social development. "Through these cooperation models, scientific research achievements can be effectively transformed into actual products and services, and the market competitiveness of enterprises can be enhanced. And bring greater economic and social benefits to society."
Buses, art galleries, museums and libraries in Manchester, England adopt the Internet of Things technology of Beijing Shengzhe Technology Company, which enables users to receive information such as exhibitions and buildings in real time.
Shanghai Jiaotong University won 9 awards, including Industry-University-Research Cooperation Outstanding Contribution Award, Industry-University-Research Craftsman Spirit Award and Industry-University-Research Cooperation Innovation Award, at the 14th China Industry-University-Research Cooperation and Innovation Conference, for its outstanding performance in promoting the integration of politics and Industry-University-Research and innovating the cooperation environment and model in Industry-University-Research. The Zhejiang Provincial Market Supervision Bureau has identified 10 typical cases of patent transformation, involving battery heat exchangers for new energy vehicles, solar photovoltaic technology, direct ionization mass spectrometry technology and other industrial fields, which embodies the Zhejiang characteristics of patent transformation and shows the effective path and mode of patent transformation to a certain extent …
Enterprise is an important force of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation, and also the main body of patent output and transformation. Ge Shu, deputy director of the China National Intellectual Property Administration Patent Office and director of the Strategic Planning Department, said that at present, enterprises account for more than 70% of effective invention patents in China, and the number exceeds 3 million. According to the Patent Investigation Report of China in 2023, the industrialization rate of invention patents of enterprises in China reached 51.3%, which maintained a growth trend for five consecutive years.
However, at present, some enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, still have some difficulties in patent transformation and industrialization. Wang Peizhang, director of the Intellectual Property Promotion Department of China National Intellectual Property Administration, said that in order to solve the "dilemma" of patent transformation in universities and scientific research institutions and technology acquisition for small and medium-sized enterprises, and cultivate more technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises that rely on patent technology, in March 2024, China National Intellectual Property Administration and relevant departments issued the "Implementation Plan for Promoting the Growth of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises by Patent Industrialization", taking the patent industrialization as the main line and adopting the combination of "inclusive service and key cultivation" to help technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises enhance their innovation ability.
Accelerate the exploration of data intellectual property protection
Compared with traditional intellectual property rights, the difference of data intellectual property rights is mainly reflected in the changes in the production and dissemination methods of digital products. However, with the blessing of digital intelligence technology, the production and dissemination costs of intellectual property rights are getting lower and lower. Therefore, Xu Meiling said, "In the new era, the intellectual property system also calls for new theoretical construction and rule design. The state has formulated a series of action plans, which have pointed out the direction and defined the demand for the supply of data intellectual property rights system. "
The Outline of Building a Powerful Intellectual Property Country (2021-2035) requires: "To build a system of intellectual property rules in emerging fields and specific fields with timely response and reasonable protection. Establish and improve intellectual property protection rules for new technologies, new industries, new formats and new models. Explore and improve the intellectual property protection system in the Internet field. Study and build data intellectual property protection rules. " The Notice of the State Council on Printing and Distributing the National Plan for the Protection and Utilization of Intellectual Property Rights in the Tenth Five-Year Plan emphasizes: "Actively study and participate in the formulation of international rules and standards for intellectual property rights in new fields and formats such as the digital field."
Up to now, China National Intellectual Property Administration has identified 17 places, including Beijing and Shanghai, as "advance teams" to carry out data intellectual property rights work, and has received more than 13,000 applications for data intellectual property rights registration and issued more than 7,000 certificates, accounting for more than 90% of the applicants.
On the new track of digital intelligence, data intellectual property rights play an important role, which is not only related to the response to new trade barriers in international competition, but also related to the accelerated development of new quality productivity, and the in-depth implementation of strategic plans such as "strengthening the country with intellectual property rights", "artificial intelligence+"strategy and "data factor X" action, and also related to the construction of a market-oriented, rule-of-law and international first-class business environment in China.
Change "quantity" into "quality", "should" because of "novelty", and expand "opening" to "high"-Xu Meiling gave his own suggestions on the current intellectual property protection and system improvement in China.
She explained: "New technologies, new formats and new models have challenged the existing rules of intellectual property rights, and at the same time brought opportunities for self-optimization of the intellectual property system. On the one hand, China should strengthen the creation and storage of independent intellectual property rights in the fields of artificial intelligence, quantum information, integrated circuits, etc., and should also actively study the intellectual property protection system in new fields and formats, and’ or amend’ or’ or change’ or’ or abolish’ or supplement’ the existing intellectual property rules to meet the current needs of the times. "
In addition, in the face of the accelerating process of economic globalization and the complicated international situation, Xu Meiling believes that China should devote itself to promoting the opening-up of intellectual property rights in a wider scope, in a wider field and at a deeper level, promote international cooperation in intellectual property rights as a whole, actively participate in the construction of global intellectual property governance system, strengthen multilateral cooperation in the field of intellectual property rights, and continuously enhance the international influence and competitiveness of intellectual property rights to serve the development of an open economy.
At present, the global intellectual property trade, especially the data intellectual property trade, is still frequent, but the relevant rules are in a state of fragmentation and camp. "We should attach importance to the participation of multilateral or regional agreements, and further compare and study the intellectual property system of the Belt and Road countries to consolidate and improve the intellectual property cooperation of the Belt and Road countries, and make full use of this platform to expand the scale and reserves of cooperation projects." Xu Meiling said.
(The picture in this article is provided by the interviewee)