Firms reap benefits of new intellectual property guidelines

Companies in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces said at recent news conferences that they have benefited greatly from carryingout national guidelines on the management of intellectual property rights.
The news conferences were organized by the State Intellectual Property Office to promote a document issued on June 30 byeight national agencies, including the national IP authority and the Ministry of Commerce, that aims to better implement thenational guidelines.
Wu Guoxiong, vice-president at Suzhou Dongling Technologies Co, said the company has been following the nationalstandard since March. He added that nearly every employee at the company has a better understanding of how to betterprotect intellectual property.
One key goal of the standard is to have companies educate its employees about IPR and get more of them to be involved inIPR management.
Wu said the guideline has helped encourage Dongling Technologies, a provider of vibration testing equipment, to publicizehow the standard should be implemented to its employees.
Wu added that salespeople in Dongling Technologies now understand that they cannot provide full access to new technicalsolutions, which is considered the company's intellectual property created by the company's technicians, to clients.
For example, salespeople can discuss the company's technical solutions to clients but not provide documentation about thetechnology.
"They did not have a sense of this in the past," said Wu, who added that employees who are not involved in the creation oftechnical solutions would not be aware of protecting the rights of the company's intellectual property.
The national IPR management standard also helped Sunwave Communications Co in Zhejiang province better protect itsIPR, said Shen Bing, the company's IPR manager.
He said they didn't begin IPR-related work, including the application of patents, until technicians finished their research anddevelopment of products and technologies.
After the company began implementing the national guidelines on September 2013, it understood that they could betterprotect a product's intellectual property rights by establishing patent plans in advance.
The national standard helped their companies manage IPR more systematically and effectively, both Wu and Shen said.
Wu said the company has improved its IPR management system and made each of the company's departments, such asproduction and sales, help in the management of IPR.
Dongling Technologies also set up an independent IPR office to be responsible for analyzing patent information, applying forpatents, safeguarding and managing patent rights.
Shen said before Sunwave implemented the national guidelines, its IPR management had been fragmented and onlyinvolved its technical department.
He said by establishing and carrying out an IPR management system, Sunwave can better formulate clear IP developmentplans. The system allows Sunwave to monitor IPR management results in real-time with data that is recorded and preserved,Shen said.
He said by doing so, the company will be able to find problems at an earlier time, fix them and improve its IPR managementsystem.
The national standard for enterprise IPR management formulated by the State Intellectual Property Office took effect in March2013. It is a voluntary standard and targets companies that want to improve IPR management, said an official at the IPauthority.
The official said the standard guides enterprises through planning, carrying out, checking and improving an IPR managementsystem to promote their IPR management capabilities and become more competitive.
Shen said Sunwave would keep improving its IPR management system and hopes to get accreditation as soon as possible.