Domestically, protection of intellectual property law has also been established by government legislation, administrative regulations, and decrees in the areas of trademark, copyright, and patent.
[1]: 184 China acceded to the WIPO-administered[1]: 184 the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property on 19 December 1984 and became an official member on 19 March 1985.
[5] China's adoption of TRIPS incentivized Chinese policymakers to improve the country's regulatory structure to encourage national innovation and resulted in significant domestic policy reforms.
[1]: 61–63 China's regional specialties are generally more geared towards agricultural products rather than wines and spirits, and tends to favor a geographical indication extension.
[1]: 19 In 2012, China hosted the China-ASEAN Seminar on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights, Traditional Knowledge, and Genetic Resources.
[1]: 210–211 As part of the Like-Minded Megadiverse Countries (LMMC), China promotes international negotiations on the disclosure of the origin of genetic resources in the context of patents.
[1]: 83–84 China is involved in discussions on the protection of genetic resources in a variety of international forums, including the TRIPS Council, the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee, and in its free-trade agreements.
[9]: 60 These included editorial rules by which state publishing entities were encouraged to memorialize the author-publisher relationship in contracts which would cover submitting manuscripts, publication, and payment.
[1]: 96–97 These amendments established a disclosure obligation for genetic resources, a domestic provision which developed from the positions China took in negotiating on this issue in the TRIPS Council.
[14] This increase resulted in part from government incentives to patent filers, outpacing China's actual R&D spending and labor productivity.
[16] Apart from major legislation on trademarks, copyright and patents, a few other laws and regulations have been passed to deal with intellectual property related issues.
Articles 94–97 of the General Principles of Civil Law deal with intellectual property rights of Chinese citizens and legal persons.
[citation needed] The latter prohibited the passing off of registered trademarks, infringing trade secrets, the illegal use of well-known goods or names of other people, as well as other misleading and deceptive conduct.
[1]: 67 The agreement developed from pilot programs over the preceding eight years in which China and the EU worked on mutual registering and protection of geographical indications.
[citation needed] China's IP regulators and policy-makers generally maintain close contact with their peers from developed countries and in international institutions.
[1]: 187 In the 1980s, Chinese courts and regulators began to enforce intellectual property protections on the basis international treaties China had signed before corresponding domestic IP laws were yet in place.
[21] In 2019, the city of Hangzhou established a pilot program artificial intelligence-based Internet Court to adjudicate internet-related intellectual property claims as well as ecommerce disputes.
It may create obstacles during IPRs investigation and assist local counterfeiters by letting them hide their production lines in safer places.
The Chinese government dominates 70% of its country's search engine revenue and has been called on by US officials to limit the activity of online counterfeiting groups.
[24][25] The first major dispute on violation of intellectual property rights was filed in April 1992 by Wang Yongmin, the inventor of Wubi, against Dongnan Corporation.
[27] In the 1994 Disney v. Beijing Publishing House case dealt with how a Chinese court would apply international agreements in copyright disputes.
[1]: 216 The court decided to apply the MOU to the dispute and to construe it as a treaty, ordering Beijing Publishing House to pay damages to Disney.
[29] In 2007, CHINT Group Co. Ltd sued French low-voltage electronics manufacturer Schneider for infringement of a circuit breaker utility model patent.
[10]: 102 In 2016 the Lego group sued a manufacturer in China over copyright infringement involving sales worth more than 330 million RMB.
On 24 August 2023, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court awarded €650,000 ($696,000) in damages to Silvain, the highest amount so far for cases related to fine arts in China, and ordered Ye to make a public apology in the Global Times.
[8]: 131 The CERC Technology Management Plan required, in the event of dispute, that the parties should attempt to reach a mutually agreeable resolution.
[8]: 132 If none could be reached, the Technology Management Plan required submission of the dispute to arbitration in accordance with the rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law.
[8]: 132 In 2014, the Office of the United States Trade Representative once again placed China on its "priority watch list" for intellectual property rights violations, along with other nations.
[41] In addition, the U.S., based on claims brought to it by the China Copyright Alliance (CCA)—a group of major copyright industry associations and select companies—brought two World Trade Organization (WTO) cases against China, one focused on intellectual property rights violations, and one based on market access deficiencies.
A third avenue is the negotiation of a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) with China that contains a dispute settlement mechanism between states and investors in order to ensure effective enforcement.