Shanghai plans to cluster IPR services
By Xiao Liang (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-04-16 08:42

Shanghai is soon to open an intellectual property right (IPR) park, the first of its kind in China, which aims to create a comprehensive IPR service platform with national influence.

Jointly funded by the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration (SIPA) and the local Yangpu District government, the park, scheduled to be unveiled on April 19, is regarded as part of local authorities' efforts to enable science and education to play a bigger role in powering the city's future development.

"The park will hopefully help us overcome some bottlenecks in our present handling of public IPR services," said Xu Zhanglin, deputy director of SIPA.

Featuring quite a few intermediary agencies engaged in IPR operations, the facility will be able to offer a package of services covering areas like patents, copyrights and trademarks, he said.

In that way, the park will help create a smoother flow of information and cluster human resources or organizations in the area of IPR, Xu said.

Chen Zuyao, deputy director of the trademark department of the Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administration Bureau, further illustrated the park's future roles.

"We need the park to function as a trademark transaction platform to realize the value of intangible assets like trademarks," said Chen.

According to Chen, his department accepted more than 21,000 trademark applications last year, a record number, which compared with about 10,000 applications in 2001.

On the other side of the picture, local enterprises own some 76,000 registered trademarks at present.

About one-third of those are not in use, he said, resulting in a waste of such intangible assets.

By absorbing the inflow of trademark intermediary agencies, the park can help create more alternatives to dispose of such unused trademarks through various means like transfers or franchises, said Chen.

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