History

Intellectual property rights (IPR) is a rather new concept in China. Up until the late 1970’s China did not have such a concept. When developing the IPR system China gathered information about how different national legal system and also international conventions to find inspiration and gather information to evaluate what kind of IPR system is suitable for China. Hence, Chinese IPR is similar to international IPR in many ways.

The period between mid 1980’s and early 1990’s China became a signatory state of several international conventions and agreements such as the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, the Paris Convention for Protection of Industrial Property, the Madrid Agreement for the International Registration of Trademarks. Also, in the mid 1990’s China entered into a memorandum of understanding with the United States’ government to provide copyright protection for all American “works” and for other foreign “works”. Negotiations with the United States’ government later led to the mutually signed Sino-US Agreement on Intellectual Property Rights. In 2001 China became a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WTO).

By becoming a signatory state of international conventions and agreements the Chinese Court can rely on the provisions in those conventions and agreements when ruling on an Intellectual Property case instead of relying on Chinese national autonomous legislation.

Chinese national autonomous IPR is based on three legislative acts, the Patent Law, the Trademark Law and the Copyright Law. Under the headings for Patent, Trademarks and Copyright information about the most important aspects of Chinese IPR can be found with emphasis on aspects that might differ from known international IPR systems.