The Chinese government had little knowledge and experience about the IP clauses in the early days; therefore, they were very laith to sign the agreements with US. This period has been described as the first “IP fever” because it was the start point of China to conduct very intensive research in this special area [9] . The current authors name this as the first “hot wave” on IP in China―the formation wave.

1973, Premier Minister Zhou’s visit to WIPO

In 1973, the approval of Premier Zhou Enlai and the China Council For The Promotion Of International Trade (CCPIT)’s Director of Legal Affairs visited WIPO. It was the first time that the Chinese government allowed an officer to visit an international intellectual property institution since the foundation of the state.

1974, the first formal activity of IPR

The first formal activity of international intellectual property of China occurred in 1974 when the governments of China and Australia signed an exchange of notes regard the registration of trademark between both nations.

1979 Agreement

Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have been acknowledged and protected in the People’s Republic of China since 1979. The Agreement on Trade Relations Between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China of 1979 (“1979 Agreement”) was the starts of intellectual property protection by Western.

1980, access of WIPO

China joined WIPO as its 90rd member in 1980. Only one year after the acceding to WIPO, in 1981, the Director of WIPO Dr. Arpad Bogsch visited China, convened the first patent agents course personally at the CCPIT Headquarters in Beijing.

1984, the first patent law

In March 1984, China’s National People’s Congress promulgated the first Chinese patent law, which is an epoch-making event which opened a new chapter of the protection of intellectual property rights.

1985, SIPO’s foundation

The State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China (SIPO), also known as the Chinese Patent Office, is the patent office of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It was founded on 1980, as the Patent Office of the People’s Republic of China, the predecessor of SIPO². It is responsible “for patent work and comprehensively coordination of the foreign related affairs in the field of intellectual property”³.

1989, joined the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks

China joined the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks in 1989⁴ the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks, which dates from 1891, and the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement, which was adopted in 1989, entered into force on December 1, 1995, and came into operation on April 1, 1996. Common Regulations under the Agreement and Protocol also came into force on that date.

1992, Signed MOU with US

Urged by American business executives, the USTR placed China on the “Priority Watch List” in 1989. By doing so, the United States gained leverage in negotiations with China while it did not need to initiate a Section 301 investigation.

In response to the Priority Watch List designation, China passed a new copyright law⁵ and issued new implementing regulations in 1990. A separate set of computer software regulations⁶ followed in 1991.

Hours before the deadline for imposing sanctions, both countries averted a potential trade war by signing the Memorandum of Understanding Between China and the United States on the Protection of Intellectual Property (“1992 MOU”).

The third hot wave of IP occurred in 1995 when China became the signatory countries to the TRIPS agreement―“the improvement wave”. The third wave reflected a very different picture of IP in China. In the first two waves, China was mainly influenced by the US under its one-sided threats and the treaties and conventions of WIPO. Nevertheless, in the third wave, one-sided threats have been confined under the WTO agreement. TRIPS became the most important measurement on international trade and IP.

1995, agreement between China and United States

The 1995 National Trade Estimate Report estimated that U.S. industries suffered almost $850 million in losses due to copyright theft alone. On June 30 1994, the USTR again designated China a Priority Foreign Country and immediately initiated a Special 301 investigation. According to the Xinhua News Agency, China’s international news service, China needed to take such retaliatory measures “to protect its sovereignty and national dignity.”⁷ Ending up with the signing of “1995 Agreement”.

The fourth wave―the enforcement wave, appeared in 2001 when China access into the WTO after 15 years of consultations. The principal character of this period has been the enhancement of legal enforcement.

2001, access of WTO, TRIPs

In order to gain the access to WTO, China enhanced the protection of IPRs by designing a number of strategies in 1996 APEC Individual Action Plan, including improve the enforcement of administration, enhance the public awareness of IPRs protection and strengthen judicial tools [2] .

Finally, China has gained the entry into the WTO in 2001, complying with the minimum standards of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). The TRIPs requires a number of countries to strengthen their patent and other intellectual property rights (IPR) systems. Even though policy makers have committed to significant reforms, the implementation of this agreement remains contentious.

2004, SIPO’s progress

In 2004, China has become the fourth largest patent office in number of patent filings in the world, the top three countries are, by rank, Japan, the United States, and South Korea².

2014, the Beijing WIPO office

To improve cooperation on protection of intellectual property rights (IPR), the WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry came to Beijing in July for opening a WIPO office⁸, one of only four globally. Gurry spoke highly of China’s support for WIPO, the high importance China attached to innovation and IPR protection and the remarkable achievements it made.

2014, the new strategy

The Promotion Plan for the Implementation of the National Intellectual Property Strategy in 2014 was published on May 5^th. This plan is promulgated to implement the requirements of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, carry out the requirements of the national television and telephone conference on implementing intellectual property strategy, promote the deep and efficient implementation of the national intellectual property strategy, identify the primary goals and measures for the implementation of the strategy in 2014⁹.

The key Chinese administrative bodies are the Intellectual Property Offices (IPOs), the Administrations for Industry and Commerce (AICs), the Copyright Office, and the Quality and Technical Supervision Bureaus (QTSBs) (local divisions of the Administration for Quality Supervision Inspection and Quarantine). These are empowered to take certain actions against companies infringing intellectual property rights. These bodies between them have the power to:

・ Raid defendants’ premises and to seize and destroy infringing items;

・ Impose injunctions to force the infringing party to desist;

・ Levy fines on the infringing party for TM infringement, copyright infringement and counterfeiting patent certificates.

Civil litigation is equivalent to a court case. The usual remedies sought are injunctions, damages, delivery up and destruction (of tools/products). A civil action will generally take six to 12 months from the issuance of proceedings until handing down of the judgment. Infringing acts under Chinese Patent law include sale, offer for sale, use, manufacture and export. It is usually easiest to obtain evidence of sale or offer for sale, but even this is not entirely straightforward because Chinese courts require this type of evidence of infringement to be given by a notary public.

Criminal sanctions are only used in relation to patents where the counterfeiting of the patent certificates themselves has taken place. Such actions are rare; criminal proceedings are more common in relation to trade mark and copyright infringements. There are three methods of bringing criminal sanctions:

・ IP owner reports to the Public Security Bureau (PSB);

・ An administrative agency transfers its case to a criminal agency when it comes to suspect the damage inflicted by the defendant exceeds certain thresholds;

・ A trade mark owner can choose to file a criminal lawsuit with the court known as a private prosecution.

The first two approaches are common whilst the final approach is less so because claimants have no compulsory powers to obtain evidence, unlike the authorities.

While practice varies across China, many Chinese customs authorities will proactively enforce trademarks registered with them. However, generally they will not do the same for patents nor copyright and therefore patent/ copyright owners wishing to have infringing goods seized by customs must inform the customs officers of the precise details of each shipment to be seized (including the container number). In practice, obtaining this information entails extensive use of private investigators.

The value of this category indicates the fraction of 8 elements (pharmaceuticals; chemicals; food; surgical products; microorganisms; utility models; software; plant and animal) that were specified as being patentable in the law or not.

As the government revised the patent law in 1992, plants and animals are excluded from the scope of patentable subject matters under the patent law of China since Jan. 1^st, 1993 (Article 25)¹².

So the value of “Coverage” is 1 from 1985 to 1992, and it is 0.875 since 1993.

Countries which are signatories to all 5 international agreements receive a value of 1 in this category, those which are signatories to just one receive a value of 1/5. Table 1 shows the join time and the effective time of each treaty of China.

The Paris convention and revisions is one of the most early comprehensive international treaty which have the most extensive memberships, and it’s the most basic and significant global multilateral international conventions in today’s world as well.

The main objective of the Patent cooperation treaty is to coordinate and simplify the administrative procedures, helps patent Offices with their patent granting decisions, and facilitates public access to a wealth of technical information relating to those inventions.

Source: World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)¹³.

The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) is an intergovernmental organization which was established by the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, with the mission of providing and promoting an effective system of plant variety protection.

The Budapest treaty allows “deposits of microorganisms at an international depositary authority to be recognized for the purposes of patent procedure”.

The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is an international agreement administered by the WTO that sets down minimum standards for many forms of intellectual property regulation as applied to nationals of other WTO Members.

As is shown in Table 1, it can be concluded that the value of “Membership in international treaties” is “0.2” from 1985 to 1993, “0.4” in 1994, 0.6 from 1995 to 1998, “0.8” in 1999 and 2000, and it has reached the full mark “1” since 2001.

Patent holders may also face risks of losing their patent rights. This category measures protection against losses arising from three sources: working requirements; compulsory licensing; and revocation of patents. A country that protects against all three sources receives a value of 1 in this category.

According to the Patent Law, the duration of patent right for inventions shall be fifteen years counted from the date of filing since April 1^st, 1985, and the duration shall be twenty years since Jan. 1^st, 1993.

From the above we can calculate the level of IPP yearly. As shown in Figure 1, the result is quite different from Park’s. The source of the error may be either case laws which said no (not available) or the fact that the documentation Park got were not accurate¹⁵.

For purposes of comparison we choose some developed countries (top-ten countries ranked by the average in past 25 years). From Figure 2 we can find that the level of IPP in China are growing year by year, and has reached a level close to some developed country, but it does not mean the higher the better, Chinese policy makers should make clear of the fundamental purpose of strengthening intellectual property protection in China is to promote domestic industrial upgrading, encourage innovation, and promote China’s economic development, however, China cannot afford this under the existing economic level.