IP Forum Scheduled for May

The Intellectual Property Protection for High Technology Forum is scheduled to be held May 9-10 in Beijing.

The forum, an event within the 2000 China (Beijing) High-Tech Industries Week, will focus on the need to protect intellectual property (IP) rights to improve and protect the promising high-tech industry's investment climate.

Famous specialists from home and abroad and professional IP legal experts from around the country will attend the forum.

On May 9, four speeches, involving high technology and IP, high-tech exchanges and IP, legal solutions for high-tech IP disputes, and judicial practices related to China's IP protection, are expected to be delivered by Chinese experts at the 21st Century Hotel.

The next day, the IP tribunal of the Haidian District People's Court is expected to publicly hear two typical IP cases concerning high technology.

"Domestic and foreign journalists are welcomed view the court in action, while all participants of the forum may attend the case hearings,'' Zhang Lumin, president with the IP Division of Beijing

Higher People's Court told Business Weekly.

The judiciary's handling of IP cases in its people's courts in Beijing has improved with the establishment and improvement of China's legal system related to IP protection.

"Chinese people nowadays widely accept the notion that IP protection is important for promoting scientific and technological progress,'' Zhang pointed out.

However, since IP is an intangible property, the judicial protection thereof is far more difficult and complex than that of tangible property, especially for newly developing high technologies.

Beijing, as the capital city of China, established tribunals for adjudicating IP cases in 1993, and the case load has grown year by year.

Statistics from the Beijing Higher People's Court indicate that, from 1985 to 1999, people's courts of Beijing at all levels accepted 2,959 cases involving IP at the first instance. Of these, 2,819 cases were concluded.

To further improve the quality and efficiency of IP case adjudication, beginning in May 1998, all IP cases were directed to IP tribunals under the Beijing Higher People's Court, the Beijing No 1 or No 2 Middle People's Courts, the Haidian District People's Court or the Chaoyang District People's Court.



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