Source: China Daily

An important conference on intellectual property for countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative was held on Tuesday, gathering industry experts to discuss strengthening global cooperation and tackling IP in the digital era.

The 2018 High-Level Conference on Intellectual Property for Countries Along the Belt and Road discussed legal frameworks, policies and interdepartmental information exchange as being some of the key factors in building a robust IP system among international governmental bodies, organizations, businesses and IP holders, officials said. Thanks to the widespread use of mobile internet and smart communication devices, internet services have boomed worldwide in recent years, which at the same time has brought about new challenges for IP protection, said Wang Hong, director general of Beijing Intellectual Property Office in China.

Ma Hao, president of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property, said that artificial intelligence technology, big data and cloud services have greatly changed people's lives. "However, in terms of AI, we are still at an early stage of the evolution. Therefore, IP laws should be updated to solve core issues," Ma said.

Tang Zhaozhi, deputy director general of Copyright Department in National Copyright Administration of China, said the economic contribution made by the copyright industry has continued to rise in China in recent years. The number of copyright registrations in China in 2017 reached 2.75 million, a 36.86 percent growth year-on-year.

The annual increase in the market size of internet copyright industry from 2013 to 2017 has also kept pace above 27 percent. In 2017, its market scale reached 636.45 billion yuan, about three times that of 2013, Tang said.

Copyright protection in China has been highlighted in the fields of legislation, judicial protection and administration. Under the implementation of Swordnet Special Actions, a specialized program tackling online piracy, 2,554 websites which contain pirated material have been closed and more than 710,000 pirated links were deleted in 2017 alone, Tang said.

Lilia Bolocan, director general of State Agency for Intellectual Property of Moldova, addressed the fundamental role that IP plays in creating a favorable environment for innovation, creativity and free competition.

Bolocan recommended that global governments establish an interdepartmental information system to ensure interinstitutional data exchange for the enforcement of IP rights, a more transparent collective IP management system as well as a long-distance study platform.