The China National Intellectual Property Administration ("CNIPA") has recently issued the Annual Guidelines for Boosting High-quality Intellectual Property Development (2019) (the "Guidelines").
The Guidelines anticipate that China will witness a further rise in the quality of intellectual property (IP) creation, effects of IP protection, benefits of IP application, IP management level, capacity for IP services, and international IP clout, and manage to preliminarily set up an indicator system, a policy system and a statistical system that favor the high-quality IP development, by the end of 2019. Also, it is expected to shorten by over 15% the timeframe for examination and approval of high-value patents which was shortened by 10% in 2018, and have the examination and approval process for trademark registration compressed into less than five months. According to the Guidelines, efforts will be made to improve relevant laws and regulations, coordinate with work on amending the Patent Law, establish the punitive damages system, and dramatically increase the price paid for infringement and violations. Also, preparatory work for a new round of revisions to the Trademark Law will commence, and efforts will be stepped up to build the mechanism for responses to foreign-related IP disputes. Furthermore, actions will be taken to expand the scope of IP-related financial services, move forward with the pledging of patents and trademarks together, encourage the development and rollout of comprehensive IP insurance, and drive ahead the pilot IP securitization at a more rapid pace.