China's "People's Republic of China (PRC) Patent Law", "People's Republic of China (PRC) Trademark Law", "People's Republic of China (PRC) Copyright Law" and other laws and regulations have been promulgated one after another, providing a legal basis for intellectual property protection of various enterprises.
I. Patent Protection
There are three kinds of patents: invention patents, utility model patents and design patents. The patent rights enjoyed by the patentee mainly include the right to manufacture, the right to use, the right to sell, the right to sell, the right to import, the right to transfer and the right to license. Patent right also includes prohibition right, waiver right and marking right. The protection period of invention patent is 20 years, and the protection period of utility model and design is 10 year.
Applying for a patent has the following advantages:
1. Obtaining monopoly right: The patentee can directly prevent the corresponding competition of commercial competitors and obtain higher profit returns.
2. Earn royalties: Even if there is no immediate need for patents in the market, people are likely to notice the use of patents in the future and are willing to pay royalties. American Xerox Company invented the graphical user interface, but did not apply for a patent. Later, Microsoft and Apple used the graphical user interface as the basis of their personal computer operating systems. According to a preliminary estimate, Xerox lost nearly 1 100 million dollars in royalties in vain. On the other hand, Xerox lost nearly 1 billion dollars in royalties.
3. As a defensive shield: If the inventor fails to apply for a patent for the first time, the competitor will take the lead. By then, all the efforts made by the inventor in research and development will be wasted, and the inventor himself will not be able to use his own scientific research results.
4. Helping to explore foreign markets: At present, more than 65,438+070 countries and regions in the world have established and implemented patent systems. Many foreign buyers, especially American buyers, will ask local manufacturers or sellers to prove that they own the intellectual property rights of their products, so as to protect themselves from being involved in infringement lawsuits before they are willing to trade.
5. Improve the competitiveness of enterprises with small ones: patents are equally important to large, medium and small enterprises and new enterprises. In the fierce competition market, small enterprises can completely obtain patented new inventions to beat the leading products set up by large enterprises with huge advertisements.
6. Increase enterprise value: If a third party is willing to invest in a company, and if the company has a number of valuable patents, then the company's share price will be greatly increased. 1997 Microsoft bought a small company with less than 6,000 users for $425 million. The purchase price is 40 times the average price of the industry calculated by the number of users. Microsoft is willing to pay at this share price because it holds 35 important patents for transmitting TV content through the Internet.
7. It is beneficial for enterprises to make scientific and correct decisions: through patent analysis, enterprises can understand the trends of science and technology, industry, market and new products, and then predict and formulate their own short-,medium-and long-term development plans, and determine which products they develop to occupy the market, maintain a leading position and expand market share.
Second, trademark protection.
The Trademark Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) stipulates that commodity trademarks, service trademarks, collective trademarks and certification trademarks can apply for registration in China and obtain the exclusive right to use trademarks. Trademark logo can be text, graphics or their combination.
Commodity trademarks refer to trademarks used in the production, manufacture, processing, selection and distribution of commodities.
Service trademark refers to the trademark used by service providers to distinguish their services from those provided by others.
A collective trademark refers to a trademark used by members of industrial and commercial organizations, associations or other collective organizations on goods or services, indicating that the operators or service providers of goods belong to the same organization, so as to distinguish the goods or services provided by non-members.
A certification trademark refers to a trademark that is controlled by an administrative organ, an organization or an organization designated by it with control and testing capabilities and used by others on goods or services to prove the origin, main raw materials, manufacturing methods, quality, accuracy and other specific qualities of goods.
The trademark protection period is 10 year, during which there is no charge, and it can be renewed after 10 year. Trademark registration has the following advantages:
1, national protection, no one else can use it.
2. Registered trademarks are the most important intangible assets of enterprises, which can be passed on to future generations and can be transferred and inherited as property investment and mortgage.
3. Products are easy to sell in large shopping malls or supermarkets. More and more large shopping malls or supermarkets only allow goods with registered trademarks to enter.
Most consumers think that the quality of goods with registered trademarks is more reliable and easy to win the trust of consumers.
5. Avoid the trademark painstakingly designed being registered by others first. Because China implements the principle of "application first" for the same trademark registration application, the application in the latter is not only not allowed to register the trademark, but also not allowed to be reused, otherwise it will constitute infringement.
6. Avoid unintentional infringement and pay huge compensation. The new judicial interpretation stipulates that the amount of compensation shall be decided by the infringed.
Third, copyright protection.
At present, copyright is mostly used to protect computer software at home and abroad. In China, the Measures for the Registration of Computer Software is specially used to protect software with independent intellectual property rights. Using software registration as a copyright protection method has many advantages:
1, the registered software will announce the owner, development time, completion time, name and content, which has a clear dispute basis, so as to clarify the ownership of the software and avoid unnecessary ownership disputes caused by job hopping. It can also be said that software registration is the premise of administrative handling or legal proceedings of software rights disputes.
2, the authorization is fast, and you can get the certificate in about two months. The copyright protection time is long, and the protection period is 50 years.
3. The registered software does not disclose the software program, and only when there is infringement will it be used as the basis for infringement determination, with excellent confidentiality.
4. The scope of protection is wide, which can be effectively used as the basis for the determination of infringement.
5, the cost is low, and only one-time payment is required, and no annual fee is required.
Attachment: Relevant laws and regulations:
The new criminal law of People's Republic of China (PRC) came into effect on June 1 997+1October1. In the new criminal law, the crime of infringing intellectual property rights is listed separately. Prior to this, China's laws and regulations on intellectual property protection have listed that criminal responsibility should be investigated with reference to the relevant provisions of the Criminal Law. This revision of China's criminal law shows that China has strengthened the protection of intellectual property rights.
The relevant provisions in the new Criminal Law are as follows:
1. Whoever uses the same trademark as the registered trademark on the same commodity without the permission of the registered trademark owner, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention and shall also or only be fined; If the circumstances are especially serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years and shall also be fined.
2. Whoever knowingly sells goods with counterfeit registered trademarks, and the sales amount is relatively large, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and shall also or only be fined; If the sales amount is huge, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years and shall also be fined.
3. Forge or make a registered trademark logo of another person without authorization or sell a forged or made registered trademark logo without authorization, if the circumstances are serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or public surveillance, and shall also, or shall only, be fined; If the circumstances are especially serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years and shall also be fined.
Four, counterfeit patents, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years.
Five, for the purpose of making profits, one of the following cases of copyright infringement, the amount of illegal income is relatively large or there are other serious circumstances, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and shall also or shall only be fined; If the amount of illegal income is huge or there are other particularly serious circumstances, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years and shall also be fined:
(1) Reproduction and distribution of written works, music, movies, television and video works, computer software and other works without the permission of the copyright owner;
(2) Publishing books with exclusive publishing rights enjoyed by others;
(3) Reproduction and distribution of audio and video products made by the producer without the permission of the producer;
(4) producing or selling works of art with forged signatures of others.
6. Whoever, for the purpose of making profits, knowingly sells infringing copies of the above provisions, and the amount of illegal income is huge, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and shall also, or shall only, be fined.
Seven, one of the following acts of infringement of trade secrets, causing heavy losses to the right holder of trade secrets, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and shall also or shall only be fined; Whoever causes especially serious consequences shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years and shall also be fined:
(1) Obtaining the business secrets of the obligee by theft, inducement, coercion or other improper means;
(2) disclosing, using or allowing others to use the business secrets of the obligee obtained by means of the preceding paragraph;
(3) disclosing, using or allowing others to use the business secrets in their possession in violation of the agreement or the requirements of the obligee to keep the business secrets.
Anyone who knows or should know the acts listed in the preceding paragraph and obtains, uses or discloses other people's trade secrets shall be regarded as infringing on trade secrets.
The above-mentioned business secrets refer to technical information and business information that are not known to the public, can bring economic benefits to the obligee, are practical and are kept confidential by the obligee.
The above obligee refers to the owner of the business secret and the user of the business secret with the permission of the owner.
In addition, if a unit commits the above-mentioned crimes, it shall be fined, and the directly responsible person in charge and other directly responsible personnel shall be punished in accordance with the above-mentioned provisions.