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No. 186 Managing Intell. Prop. 22 (February 2009)
The Tasks of Tian

handle is hein.journals/manintpr186 and id is 24 raw text is: COE STRY TINLP NEVE The tasks of Tian China's developing IP system faces some big tests in 2009. Janice Qu and Peter Oilier spoke with SIPO commissioner Tian Lipu about patent amendments, the National IP Strategy and the Office's global role his is going to be a big year for IP in China. The government set the scene in 2008 by publishing a National IP Strategy in June that aims to make the coun- try one of the world's most innovative by 2020 and then passing amendments to the Patent Law in December that are designed to encourage domestic innovation. Now Tian Lipu, commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) must deliver on the promise to turn made in China into invented in China. The challenge is great. While China's patent system has developed at incredible speed during the past 30 years, IP awareness among businesses is still low. A dra- matic rise in filings hides the fact that few Chinese patents are included in lucrative patent pools and standards. That increase in filings has given SIPO many of the problems that are faced by the world's biggest patent offices: ensuring examinations are carried out quickly and to a high standard while dealing with the ever-increas- ing amount of prior art in different languages. SIPO also faces its own domestic challenges. Foreign companies complain that some businesses are abusing the system of unexamined utility model patents to file applica- tions with little or no inventive step and are then enforcing these so-called junk patents in court. Finally, SIPO, as China's main IP organisation (trade marks and copyright are dealt with by separate offices) now needs to establish how it will use its increasing clout on the international stage and what role it will play in issues where patents and politics meet, such as genetic resources, traditional knowledge and access to medicines. SIPO commissioner Tian Lipu is the man tasked with addressing these questions. Speaking to Managing IP at the sidelines of a roundtable in Hong Kong about the National IP Strategy, Tian, now the longest serving head of a major patent office, was relaxed, open and happy to answer questions on a wide range of topics. He stressed that raising IP awareness domestically is SIPO's key challenge: Chinese companies need to be educated and trained to understand what IP is. Coping with the rise in filings You could argue that each of the last 30 years has been a big year for IP in China, such has been the speed of the country's economic development. The country only established a patent office in 1980 (see History of SIPO), shortly after Deng Xiaoping opened up its economy. Tian joined what was then known as the Chinese Patent What is the National IP Strategy? Announced in 2005 and finally published in ers highlighted the sections dealing with June last year, the outline of the National IP enforcement, particularly the paragraphs that Strategy provides a roadmap to how China promise to study the option of setting up a plans to become one of the world's most specialised IP court, improve existing judicial innovative countries by 2020. Compiled after interpretations and refine court procedures. extensive negotiations between 33 depart- The Strategy also commits the government to ments or commissions of the State Council, amend the country's patent, trade mark and the English translation is 5,300 words long copyright laws. Thomas Pattloch, IP officer in and consists of five parts: the preface; guid- the EU Delegation in Beijing, described the ing principles and strategic goals; strategic strategy as a written endorsement of a real focuses; specific tasks; and strategic meas- roadmap which all the agencies in China must ures. At the time of its release, IP practition- follow. 22 1 FEBRUARY 2009 WWW.MANAGINGIP.COM

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