Editor's note: The year 2008 carried great weight for promoting and enforcing the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) system in China.

In addition to marking the 30th anniversary of the launch of reform and opening policies, it was also the inaugural year for the implementation of the national IPR strategy. The Chinese IPR system reported 828,328 patent applications and 698,000 applications for trademark registration last year.

After China launched its Compendium of the National Intellectual Property Strategy, the State Intellectual Property Office released a White Paper on China's intellectual property protection policies and public education efforts in 2008.

The White Paper is a summary of last year's report on IPR protection in China and includes eight parts detailing various aspects of intellectual property.

China Business Weekly published the first eight parts of the White Paper in a series during the past few weeks. Below is the last part of the text:

The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) actively participated in the formulation of meeting documents of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) and norm setting activities.

The MOA also completed its share of drafting UPOV testing guidelines on tea tree and sorghum, which were praised by UPOV and the member countries.

The MOA actively contacted relevant countries and international organizations to promote communications on geographical indications of agricultural products.

From April 15 to April 16, 2008, the Supreme People's Court (SPC), World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO), German Federal Supreme Court and Mexican Supreme Court jointly organized the International Advanced Seminar on IPR Judicial Protection in Beijing.

Forty judges and experts from China and oversease attended the seminar.

From July 10 to July 11, 2008, the SPC held the International Seminar on IPR Judicial Protection in Shanghai.

About 200 representatives of judiciary authorities, academic institutions, companies and other organizations from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, United States, Japan, the Netherlands and China attended the seminar.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate actively participated in external negotiations and training activities with IPR international organizations.

The procuratorate worked with the Ministry of Commerce to hear the US case against China before the World Trade Organization (WTO).

With the procuratorate's full participation and efforts of many agencies, China won the argument on criminal thresholds.

It also sent officials to meetings of the China-EU IPR Working Group, China-EU IPR II Project, China-Switzerland IPR Working Group, China-US Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT), WTO trade policy review on China and the WTO transitional review on China's trade policy report.

In 2008, the Ministry of Public Service (MPS) met 19 times with visiting law enforcement agencies, industrial associations and companies from countries and nations including the US, European Union and Japan.

The MPS assisted and organized local police departments on eight occasions to attend training sessions or communicate abroad and reaped positive results.

After successful cooperation with Interpol on Operation Jupiter, the MPS in March worked with Interpol, the World Health Organization, and law enforcement agencies in six countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to wage a joint operation code-named Operation Thunderstorm to investigate counterfeit drug operations.

The MPS joined the National Copyright Administration of China, US Ministry of Justice and US Patent and Trademark Office for the China-US Seminar on IPR Criminal Enforcement on the Internet.

(China Daily 08/10/2009 page9)