1 Beijing

Brand Power Index

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology began a nationwide survey today for the 2013 China Brand Power Index.

The index, also known as the C-BPI, is an effort by the ministry to help lift the quality of domestic brands and protect the intellectual property rights of both indigenous and overseas branded products in China.

The survey will be jointly conducted by the China Enterprise Brand Research Center and Tsinghua University, with the results scheduled for release in the first quarter next year.

Design Week deals

Agreements worth a total of 5.6 billion yuan ($890 million) were signed during the recently concluded Beijing Design Week, which highlighted copyright protection for design works.

Organizers teamed with Beijing Customs, the China Copyright Protection Center and the National Cultural Trade Center to offer accreditation for foreign brands in a bid to boost overseas firms' confidence in the Chinese market.

The state-of-the-art cloud computing technology for design products developed by Beijing Gehua Design Co on display at the event showed how designers can permanently store first-hand information to better protect intellectual property rights.

EU gene patent

A research team from the 307 Hospital of the People's Liberation Army was recently granted a gene patent by the European Patent Office, the first of its kind from China.

The team cloned the DNA of a gene that researchers say can help cure rheumatoid arthritis.

The patent has also been approved by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

PEOPLE.COM.CN

2 Inner Mongolia

Liquefied coal tech

Shenhua Group is now a world leader in coal-to-oil technologies after its liquefaction technology was granted eight foreign invention patents, said Shu Geping, the company's chief engineer.

The company commercialized the technology by establishing the world's first production line in Ordos in 2008 with an annual capacity of 1.08 million tons of liquefied coal.

NEWS.XINHUANET.COM

3 Zhejiang

Trademarks 'wake up'

The industry and commerce administration of Pujiang county has begun a program to "wake up" nearly 200 idle trademarks.

If original registrants can be found, they will be encouraged to transfer or license the trademarks to others.

If the registrants are deceased or otherwise not contactable, the trademark information will be published to attract companies that need them.

It takes at least a year to register a new trademark, but transferring a trademark takes much shorter time.

NEWS.HEXUN.COM

4 Fujian

Distance IP training

A distance learning system on intellectual property rights designed to train local IP workers and enhance cross-Straits educational cooperation recently began operation in Fuzhou.

Luo Xuan, head of the Fujian intellectual property office, said "the system will expand training using innovative content and teaching models".

IP.PEOPLE.COM.CN

(China Daily 10/10/2012 page18)