The Chongqing government signed a cooperation agreement with Chongqing Investment Consultation Group on Sept 12, to jointly build a comprehensive service platform to protect intellectual property (IP) rights.

The service platform is supported by a professional team including lawyers, patent agents, translators and senior engineers. It aims to provide a package of comprehensive services from application and usage, to protections of intellectual property rights, such as trademarks, copyright, patents, industrial design rights and trade secrets.

The platform also offers six types of derived services, including IP confirmation, information, consultancy, commercial services, legal affairs, and educational training, according to a manager from the company.

As China is accelerating its innovation-driven development strategy on a path toward becoming an IP powerhouse, the service platform is a pioneering step in incentivizing local companies to innovate. The local government will also provide the service platform with favorable government policies to create an innovation-friendly climate in Chongqing.

A policy on accelerating the implementation of the innovation-driven strategy released by the central government in March 2015, noted the significance of strict IP protection and enhanced support for technological innovation in the capital market, and called for exploring IP securitization and IP-collateralized financial services.

Edited by James Skinner