On March 30, the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference, hosted a discussion on the future of intellectual property regarding the digital economy and the virtual world.Originally scheduled for 1 hour and 15 minutes, the meeting was extremely engaging and eventually lasted over 2 hours.

Mr. Changyu Shen, Director General of the China National Intellectual Property Administration, stated during his speech that from 2017 to 2021, the size of China's digital economy increased from 27 trillion yuan to over 45 trillion yuan, accounting for 39.8% of the country’s GDP.

Mr. Shen suggested that the intellectual property protection system for data currently being explored needs to fully consider data security, the public interest and personal privacy as well as fully respect the creative labor and capital investment in data processing.

On November 17, 2022, the National Intellectual Property Administration Office issued a notice on the designation of pilot areas for data intellectual property work. Eight cities including Beijing, Shanghai, and Zhejiang were selected. At the beginning of 2023, Shenzhen launched data intellectual property registration services, and by the end of February it had already issued 36 data registration certificates.

Mr. Shen further stated that 16 national-level intellectual property protection centers were established in order to effectively deal with the new generation of information technology, the internet, and other digital industries. These centers actively promote the combination of the internet and intellectual property protection and improve the infringement crack down effectiveness in the field.

(Source: Southern Weekend)