City emphasizes commitment to IP protection

Shanghai is striving to forge itself into an intellectual property powerhouse as it held the 17th Shanghai International Intellectual Property Forum on Tuesday.

At the forum, professionals in the intellectual property field explored and shared their latest thoughts and practices centered on intellectual property, under the theme of "promoting high-quality economic development in post-pandemic era."

“To protect intellectual property is to protect innovation, which is the biggest incentive for improving economic competitiveness. Holding the 17th Shanghai International Intellectual Property Forum is also one of the measures to build Shanghai into an international forerunner of intellectual property,” said Shen Changyu, commissioner of China National Intellectual Property Administration.

Earlier on April 26, the World Intellectual Property Day, building Shanghai into an international forefront of intellectual property was emphasized by Li Qiang, Party secretary of Shanghai. Meanwhile, Li said Shanghai sets intellectual property protection as a strategic measure to improve the competitiveness of the city.

“The forum shows that China and Shanghai attach great importance to intellectual property and meanwhile China and Shanghai’s achievements in innovation,” said Daren Tang, director general of World Intellectual Property Organization.

In recent years, the Shanghai government has focused on the target of building Shanghai into an Asian-Pacific IP hub and speeding up the implementation of IP strategy.

“Key intellectual property indicators in Shanghai, such as patent numbers, trademark numbers and copyright numbers, keep growing by double digits. The number of invention patents per 10,000 residents in Shanghai reached 58,” said Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng.

Gong added, “We will endeavor to forge Shanghai into a global hotspot where the value of intellectual property can be fully utilized.”

During the opening ceremony, the second WIPO-SMPG Shanghai Innovation Awards were given to seven Shanghai enterprises and research institutes including Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology and Spreadtrum Communications (Shanghai) Co Ltd, for their contributions to creating high-quality intellectual property, intellectual property protection and bringing out economic value and social value of intellectual property.