China has stepped up efforts to strengthen intellectual property protection through quicker channels to ensure the legitimate rights and interests of innovators are strongly and widely supported and protected, a spokeswoman of the country's top IP regulator said on Tuesday.

Guo Wen, the head of the China National Intellectual Property Administration's IP protection division, told a news conference that a total of 71 national-level IP protection centers have been set up nationwide, with the establishment of 41 stations to help innovators quickly solve IP disputes.

Such IP protection centers have been basically covered in the country's major and developed cities, while the stations have been expanded in clusters where small commodities or fast-moving consumer goods are frequently seen, according to her.

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She cited data, noting that the centers and stations accepted 35,000 cases from January to April and that the average processing time was around two weeks. "In this way, IP rights owners can be protected in a timely and convenient manner," she said.

The deputy chief judge of the SPC's No. 3 Civil Adjudication Tribunal said to punish harshly those who seriously infringe upon others' IP rights, punitive damages will be applied in 319 IP cases in 2023, an increase of 117 percent compared with 2022

In the first four months, the institutes also received 85,000 patent per-review requests, and the authorization period for invention patents approved through this per examination was kept within three months, she said.

In addition, more than 150,000 government agencies and enterprises have been registered at the institutes in order to obtain quicker and more optimized IP services, she added.

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These institutes have played a bigger role in serving innovators by issuing 833 patent analysis reports and offering 2,142 times as much free IP training in 2023, she said.

While the IP services are being facilitated, China's judicial protection of IP rights has also been enhanced.

By the end of last year, 25 high people's courts, 242 intermediate courts, and 287 grassroots-level courts had been able to consolidate IP civil, administrative and criminal cases into a single adjudication tribunal for tackling, said Ding Guangyu, an official from the Supreme People's Court.

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"Thanks to the 'three-in-one' platform, the quality and efficiency of IP case handling have been constantly improved," said the deputy chief judge of the SPC's No. 3 Civil Adjudication Tribunal.

To punish harshly those who seriously infringe upon others' IP rights, punitive damages will be applied in 319 IP cases in 2023, an increase of 117 percent compared with 2022, he added.

Cracking down cyberspace counterfeit with tech

China's top market regulator has pledged to apply more technologies to law enforcement to increase crackdowns on counterfeits and unqualified goods in cyberspace, so that intellectual property rights can be strongly protected.

The pledge was made by Tong Bo, an official from the State Administration for Market Regulation, on Tuesday while introducing its achievements against IP violations.

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She said that the administration has planned to take advantage of big data, cloud computing and mobile network in law enforcement "to improve our capability of finding and identifying IP violations".

During the crackdown, market regulators at all levels dealt with 27,000 online cases involving IP infringement, of which, 267 were transferred to public security bureaus to further investigate

According to her, a crackdown on fighting online IP infringements was jointly launched by the administration and several other authorities, including the Ministry of Public Security and the China National Intellectual Property Administration, in June last year.

"The aim of the crackdown was to urge internet platforms to perform their duties, as well as to regulate the market order in cyberspace and purify the online business environment," she said.

She cited data as revealing that during the crackdown, market regulators at all levels dealt with 27,000 online cases involving IP infringement, of which, 267 were transferred to public security bureaus to further investigate.

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The market regulators nationwide also removed about 160,000 pieces of information regarding counterfeit goods, with the shutdown of 1,374 websites, she said.

In addition, 7,390 online shops were required to stop their platform services after being found to have problems, she added.

"Similar actions are carrying on," she said, releasing that the top market regulator has continued, since March, to jointly strengthen IP protection online and severely combat counterfeits in cyberspace.