The 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) has outlined the central government’s support for Hong Kong to develop the city into 10 major centers or hubs, four of which are new. Developing Hong Kong into a regional intellectual property rights (IPR) trading center is one of them.Hong Kong has always laid emphasis on promoting IPR trading to complement the city’s standing as a global trading hub. It is therefore logical for the central government to support Hong Kong in becoming an IPR trading center.
However, the future of Hong Kong should be planned from a more strategic height. IPR is one of the development goals of China, with “patent” being mentioned three times in the 14th Five-Year Plan while “intellectual property rights” is cited 14 times. The Plan emphasizes the need to “implement a full-fledged IPR protection and application system” and “implement the strategy of strengthening the country with intellectual property rights”.
China only has about 30 years of history in providing modern IPR services. The Patent Law of the People’s Republic of China, which was adopted in 1984 and officially in force the next year, is an important milestone in China’s IPR protection system. Although China is a late starter and has a shorter development span in this area, its patent-based intellectual property service industry has developed rapidly in the past 30 years. In 1995, the number of patent applications handled by the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) only accounted for 1.8 percent of the global total that year, but in 2018 the CNIPA handled 46.4 percent of the global total, more than any other country in the world. In fact, China has stayed in the No 1 IPR applications spot for nine years running. This serves as the basis for China’s “IPR as national strength strategy”. And this strategy is in line with the principle of “high-quality development” in the modern era. It is necessary to further improve laws and regulations in relation to intellectual property rights, optimize subsidy and reward policies and evaluation mechanism for new patents, as well as ease restrictions on IPR management by research institutions and universities on their own. The peaceful rise of an “IPR empire” requires a reliable IPR trading center.
Guangdong authorities and the SAR government created the “Guangdong/Hong Kong Expert Group on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights” to jointly explore all aspects of IPR exchange and cooperation. This model can also be applied in future cooperation with other mainland cities such as Beijing and Shanghai
Knowing the national perspective will help us better capitalize on Hong Kong’s strengths in intellectual property protection and education. In recent years, IPR services in Hong Kong have adopted a trade-centric approach that will promote the entire industry to move up the value chain. The SAR government established the Working Group on Intellectual Property Trading in 2013 to study strategies that will promote Hong Kong as an IPR trading center of choice in the Asia-Pacific region.
In addition to the rule of law, Hong Kong also has a large talent pool and rich experience in international cooperation. As an international business and trade hub, the target clients of service agencies in Hong Kong are not limited to the local ones. In fact, Hong Kong has always played the roles of a broker, procurement platform and intermediary service provider for IPRs in the region. In promoting IPR intermediary services, Hong Kong focuses on training highly skilled professionals in the areas of intellectual property valuation, financing, insurance, arbitration and mediation, due diligence and matching services.
With a solid foundation in the above areas, Hong Kong should proceed to strengthen collaboration with key innovation and technology hubs on the mainland so as to establish a platform for promoting intellectual property rights. As early as 2003, Guangdong authorities and the SAR government created the “Guangdong/Hong Kong Expert Group on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights” to jointly explore all aspects of IPR exchange and cooperation, such as promotion, education, training, law enforcement and information dissemination. This model can also be applied in future cooperation with other mainland cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. In other words, Hong Kong should work toward becoming a regional center of IPR trade, with boosting the country’s IPR development as its prime objective.
The author is senior research officer of the One Country Two Systems Research Institute.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
