On March 21, 2025, China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) and 6 other government bodies released the “Opinions of the State Intellectual Property Office, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the State Financial Regulatory Administration, the National Copyright Administration and the Chinese Academy of Sciences on further optimizing the business environment in the field of intellectual property” (国家知识产权局 教育部 科技部 市场监管总局 金融监管总局 国家版权局 中国科学院关于进一步优化知识产权领域营商环境的意见).

Some highlights include:

• performing in-depth credit evaluation of patent and trademark agencies, and promptly disclose the evaluation results of agencies and practitioners to provide guidance for enterprises and the public to choose agencies;
• standardize the standards and procedures for the identification and listing of serious untrustworthy entities in the field of intellectual property rights, and impose penalties on serious untrustworthy entities in the field of intellectual property rights in accordance with laws and regulations;
• formulate licensing guidelines for standard essential patents, promote fair and reasonable licensing of standard essential patents, and prevent companies from using standard essential patents to implement monopoly behavior;
• establish a special database on standard essential patents to facilitate access to information on standard essential patents;
• accelerate the revision and deliberation of the new round of trademark law and its implementing regulations, strengthen the obligation to use trademarks, and further strengthen the regulation of malicious preemptive registration and other behaviors;
• issue typical cases of abnormal patent applications to guide the improvement of patent quality; and
• strictly restrain behaviors that disrupt market order such as vicious low-price competition.

The original text is available here. A translation follows.

To the competent departments for intellectual property, education, science and technology, market supervision, and copyright of all provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, all regulatory bureaus of the Financial Regulatory Administration, and all units under the Chinese Academy of Sciences:

This Opinion is formulated to thoroughly implement the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on optimizing the business environment and the overall requirements for intellectual property work, promptly respond to the expectations of the public and business entities, continuously reduce institutional transaction costs, further strengthen policy support and service guarantees for business entities, help create a first-class business environment, and better promote high-quality development.

I. General requirements

Guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, we will adhere to the combination of problem-oriented and goal-oriented approaches, adhere to the dual-wheel drive of institutional innovation and digital empowerment, and work together online and offline. We will benchmark against international advanced practices and experience, take creating a first-class business environment as the main line, promote the market-oriented, law-based, internationalized and convenient development of the business environment in the field of intellectual property rights, focus on the needs of innovation and development and the concerns of business entities, further optimize the business environment in the field of intellectual property rights, better play the institutional role of intellectual property rights in stimulating innovation internally and promoting openness externally, and fully stimulate the endogenous motivation and vitality of innovation and creation of various entities.

By 2027, the marketization, legalization, internationalization and facilitation of the business environment in the field of intellectual property will be significantly improved, the overall quality of intellectual property creation, utilization efficiency, protection effectiveness, management level and service capabilities will be improved, intellectual property government services will be further optimized, the satisfaction and sense of gain of enterprises and the public will continue to increase, and the role of the business environment in the field of intellectual property in promoting high-quality development will be more prominent.

II. Improve the market-oriented mechanism of intellectual property rights and help build a high-standard market system

(I) Improve the incentive mechanism for intellectual property innovation. Improve the distribution system oriented towards increasing the value of knowledge, expand the autonomy of universities and research institutes in disposing intellectual property through transfer, licensing or investment, and promote the realization of intellectual property value. Strengthen the standardized management of service inventions, deepen the reform of empowering service scientific and technological achievements, improve the intellectual property income distribution mechanism with equal rights and obligations among units, scientific researchers and technology transfer institutions, and improve the due diligence exemption and fault tolerance mechanism for patent transformation. Promote the deep integration of industry, academia and research, strengthen guidance on the formulation of intellectual property-related clauses in industry-university-research cooperation agreements, and guide all parties to reasonably agree on the organizational form of cooperation, division of tasks, capital investment, ownership of intellectual property rights, distribution of rights and interests, risk sharing and liability for breach of contract. Support universities and research institutions in establishing intellectual property management funds and operating funds. (The Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, the National Intellectual Property Administration, the National Copyright Administration, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences are responsible according to their respective duties)

(II) Promote the healthy and orderly development of the intellectual property service industry. Actively promote the supervision of patent agency delegation, entrust the supervision functions of provincial patent agencies to the municipal (districts under the jurisdiction of municipalities directly under the Central Government) level, and strengthen grassroots supervision. Carry out in-depth credit evaluation of patent and trademark agencies, and promptly disclose the evaluation results of agencies and practitioners to provide guidance for enterprises and the public to choose agencies. Strengthen the standardized management of the copyright agency industry. Strengthen administrative law enforcement, credit supervision and punishment for breach of trust for illegal and irregular intellectual property agency behaviors in accordance with laws and regulations. Improve the relevant self-discipline rules for intellectual property agencies, strictly restrain behaviors that disrupt market order such as vicious low-price competition and improper promises, and maintain a good industry ecology. (The State Administration for Market Regulation, the National Intellectual Property Administration, and the National Copyright Administration are responsible for their respective duties)

(III) Improve the market-oriented pricing and trading mechanism of intellectual property rights. Improve the intellectual property value assessment standards, continuously publish patent implementation license statistics and copyright registration data, and guide patent holders to scientifically, fairly and reasonably estimate license royalties. Carry out internal assessment pilot projects for bank intellectual property pledge financing, and guide financial institutions to improve their independent assessment capabilities. Encourage innovation in financial products such as intellectual property insurance and credit guarantees, and give full play to the role of financial support for intellectual property transformation. Accelerate the establishment and improvement of the intellectual property trading market, improve the liquidity and disposal convenience of intellectual property assets, and promote standardized intellectual property transactions. (The Financial Supervision Administration, the National Intellectual Property Administration, and the National Copyright Administration are responsible for their respective duties)

(IV) Strengthen the coordinated protection of intellectual property rights. Increase the protection of original innovation of private small, medium and micro enterprises. Strengthen the administrative law enforcement protection of intellectual property rights, and crack down on intellectual property infringements in accordance with the law. Improve the linkage of intellectual property administrative adjudication and infringement rapid processing mechanisms such as the transfer of intellectual property administrative adjudication cases, assistance in investigations, and delivery of execution, as well as the rapid coordinated protection mechanism of central-local cooperation. Improve the intellectual property credit supervision system, standardize the standards and procedures for the identification of the list of serious untrustworthy entities in the field of intellectual property rights, and impose penalties on serious untrustworthy entities in the field of intellectual property rights in accordance with laws and regulations. Relying on the national enterprise credit information disclosure system, strengthen the collection and disclosure of information such as trademarks, patents, intellectual property pledge registrations, enterprise-related administrative licenses, and administrative penalties. Strengthen anti-monopoly supervision and law enforcement, prevent and stop the abuse of intellectual property rights to exclude and restrict competition, protect fair competition in the market, and promote innovation and development. (The State Administration for Market Regulation, the National Intellectual Property Administration, and the National Copyright Administration are responsible for their respective duties)

(V) Promote collaborative innovation between standards and patents. Strengthen the linkage between patent examination and standard setting, formulate policy guidelines for patents related to promotion standards, and guide innovation entities to integrate their own intellectual property rights into technical standards. Formulate licensing guidelines for standard essential patents, promote fair and reasonable licensing of standard essential patents, and prevent companies from using standard essential patents to implement monopoly behavior. Establish a special database on standard essential patents to facilitate access to information on standard essential patents. (The State Administration for Market Regulation and the National Intellectual Property Administration are responsible for their respective duties)

III. Strengthen legal protection of intellectual property rights to better support comprehensive innovation

(VI) Improve intellectual property laws and regulations. Accelerate the revision and deliberation of the new round of trademark law and its implementing regulations, strengthen the obligation to use trademarks, and further strengthen the regulation of malicious preemptive registration and other behaviors. Accelerate the revision of supporting regulations for the Copyright Law. Improve the regulations on integrated circuit layout design. Promote special legislation for geographical indications, and improve a unified geographical indication protection system that coordinates special protection with trademark protection. Guide and strengthen the construction of the local intellectual property law system. (The National Intellectual Property Administration and the National Copyright Administration are responsible for the division of responsibilities)

(VII) Improve the rules for intellectual property protection in new areas. Promote research on intellectual property protection rules in cutting-edge technology fields, and do a good job in intellectual property protection in emerging fields. Carry out pilot work on data intellectual property rights in depth, and accelerate the establishment of data intellectual property protection rules. Explore and improve open source standards and specifications, study and formulate information technology open source intellectual property compliance standards, open source community code contribution rules and standards, and improve the level of open source intellectual property protection. (The National Intellectual Property Administration and the National Copyright Administration are responsible for their respective duties)

(VIII) Innovate the diversified examination model for patents and trademarks. Comprehensively use various examination models such as priority examination to serve the key core technology research and development. According to the needs of regional development and local key industries, further expand the pre-examination field of local intellectual property protection centers to better meet the needs of innovative entities for rapid patent confirmation and pre-examination. Optimize the rapid examination model for trademark registration applications, allow rapid examination of graphic trademarks, improve the implementation of priority examination decisions in trademark rejection reviews and objection applications, and better support parties to quickly safeguard their legitimate rights and interests. Accelerate the establishment of a trademark examination collaboration evaluation mechanism to continuously improve the quality and efficiency of examinations. (The State Intellectual Property Office is responsible)

(IX) Improve the patent and trademark examination rules. Issue the “Patent Application Guidelines” and typical cases of abnormal patent applications to guide the improvement of patent quality. Deepen the agency quality monitoring and trigger-type supervision mechanism with the rectification of abnormal patent applications as the core, and achieve precise crackdowns and precise policies. Promote the establishment of a conflict resolution mechanism for corporate names, abbreviations and trademark rights, and increase regulatory efforts. On the premise of ensuring data security, promote the sharing of patent, trademark information and business entity information, deepen the coordination between trademark examination and business entity registration in the business field, explore the establishment of a registered trademark marking and disposal mechanism for the demise of the right holder, release trademark registration resources in a timely manner, and help solve the problem of difficult trademark registration. (The State Administration for Market Regulation and the National Intellectual Property Administration are responsible according to their respective duties)

(10) Improve the copyright registration system and mechanism. Promote the establishment of a unified national copyright registration system, and further standardize the registration of works, computer software copyright registration, copyright pledge registration, foreign-related copyright contract registration, copyright exclusive license use contract and transfer contract filing. Refine copyright registration standards, study and build a copyright data service information platform, improve the level of copyright registration digitization, gradually realize online copyright registration, improve copyright registration publicity query, data submission and statistical analysis systems, promote the integration of copyright registration, query, monitoring and protection, and provide better quality and convenient services for the development of related industries. (National Copyright Administration is responsible)

IV. Improving the internationalization level of intellectual property services and effectively promoting opening up

(XI) Deepen international exchanges in the field of public services. Continue to strengthen cooperation with intellectual property examination institutions of various countries and deepen the sharing of examination information. Promote cooperation on intellectual property information and data resource projects with countries and regions participating in the joint construction of the “Belt and Road”. Support qualified Technology and Innovation Support Centers (TISCs) to carry out international exchanges on public services of intellectual property information. Encourage high-level foreign institutions to provide intellectual property services in China. Deepen international cooperation on geographical indications, encourage research on foreign language versions of geographical indication-related standards, and enhance the international influence of China’s geographical indication brands. Guide and support Chinese companies to enhance the added value and competitiveness of trademark brands, improve the international operation capabilities of trademark brands, and shape a good image of Chinese trademark brands. Continue to strengthen cooperation with copyright departments of various countries to enhance the influence and voice of copyright. (The National Intellectual Property Administration and the National Copyright Administration are responsible for their respective duties)

(XII) Strengthen guidance on overseas intellectual property dispute response. Encourage local governments to set up intellectual property guidance stations in countries and regions with intensive trade exchanges. Rely on overseas intellectual property dispute response guidance sub-centers to provide enterprises with professional and efficient overseas dispute response guidance services. Organize a list of key export enterprises by industry and increase assistance in rights protection. Support insurance institutions to develop and launch more overseas intellectual property insurance products, promote the establishment of overseas intellectual property rights protection assistance funds, and help enterprises reduce rights protection costs. Timely collect and publish information on foreign intellectual property legal systems, build a database of foreign intellectual property litigation cases, conduct typical case analysis and research, and provide information support for enterprises to deal with foreign-related intellectual property disputes. Increase the cultivation of foreign-related intellectual property legal service institutions, strengthen the construction of foreign-related intellectual property legal talent teams, and enhance the professionalism and pertinence of enterprises’ overseas dispute response guidance. (The Financial Regulatory Administration, the National Intellectual Property Administration, and the National Copyright Administration are responsible for their respective duties)

V. Promote the convenience of government services for intellectual property rights and enhance the benefits to enterprises and the public

(XIII) Promote the optimization of service processes and innovation of models. Continue to reduce the processing cycle of patent and trademark changes. Under normal circumstances, changes in recorded items involving the transfer of patent rights should be reviewed within 1 month, and trademark transfers and changes should be reviewed for the first time within 40 days and 20 days respectively. Fully implement the notification and commitment process in the reduction of patent fees, improve the post-verification and risk prevention mechanism, and further facilitate business and public affairs. Relying on the resource aggregation advantages of regional government service centers and government service platforms, promote the “one form application, one set of materials, and one window acceptance” for changes in enterprise registration matters and trademark changes, explore the integrated processing of other departments’ businesses that have a strong correlation between intellectual property business and the entire life cycle of enterprises, and provide more “one-stop service for one type of affairs” services for enterprises and the public. Standardize the government service hotline of the National Intellectual Property Administration, continuously improve the hotline connection rate and the ability level of responding personnel, establish and improve the “handle complaints immediately” mechanism, better play the role of the service hotline as a window directly facing enterprises and the public, and promptly understand problems and suggestions and respond to the demands of enterprises and the public. (The State Administration for Market Regulation and the National Intellectual Property Administration are responsible according to their respective duties)

(XIV) Deepen the digital empowerment of public services. Relying on the national intellectual property protection information platform and copyright-related information platforms, build an exclusive service space for rights holders to facilitate one-click query of all patents, trademarks, copyrights, geographical indications, and integrated circuit layout design information under their names, and timely push reminders of payment deadlines, service progress and other information. Explore the application of technologies such as natural language large models to improve the intention recognition and accurate answering capabilities of online intelligent customer service, optimize intelligent question and answer, intelligent search, intelligent guidance and other services, and better guide enterprises and the public to handle affairs efficiently and conveniently. Accelerate the construction of a national intellectual property digital comprehensive public service platform, deepen data sharing and business collaboration in the fields of intellectual property and economy, science and technology, administrative law enforcement, judicial protection, market supervision, etc., further promote the sharing and application of intellectual property electronic certificates and licenses data, and realize the interoperability and mutual recognition of electronic certificates and licenses across regions and departments. (The National Intellectual Property Administration and the National Copyright Administration are responsible for their respective duties)

(XV) Optimize the public intellectual property rights service system that is convenient for the people and beneficial to enterprises. Continue to improve the public intellectual property rights service network, further enhance the service efficiency of the National Intellectual Property Rights Information Service Center (TISC) of Colleges and Universities and the National Intellectual Property Rights Information Public Service Outlets, and strengthen service support for strategic scientific and technological forces and key industries. Support public intellectual property rights service institutions to set up service stations in key industrial parks and science and technology parks to achieve full coverage of key parks for public intellectual property rights services. Issue national standards for public intellectual property rights services, and promote the non-discriminatory acceptance and handling of intellectual property rights business across the country with the same standards. Strengthen trademark and brand public services, conduct trademark information analysis and utilization, and guide and support public service institutions to increase service support for regional brand building and corporate brand development. (The National Intellectual Property Administration and the National Copyright Administration are responsible for their respective duties)

(XVI) Standardize the evaluation of services. Improve the regular government-enterprise communication mechanism, conduct an evaluation of the satisfaction of intellectual property public services, launch an online “good and bad reviews” system for intellectual property government services, and promptly publish the evaluation results to form a service evaluation mechanism that connects the entire process of evaluation, rectification, feedback, and supervision. Adhere to the orientation of high-quality development, optimize the design of evaluation indicators related to intellectual property, and do not directly include quantitative indicators such as intellectual property registration authorization, transfer transactions, etc. into the evaluation indicators, and accelerate the transformation of intellectual property work from pursuing quantity to improving quality. (The National Intellectual Property Administration and the National Copyright Administration are responsible for their respective duties)

VI. Organizational Guarantee

The National Intellectual Property Administration will work with relevant departments to strengthen work coordination, improve work mechanisms, deepen data sharing, ensure that various reform measures are fully implemented, and adopt various forms to interpret policies, guide public opinion, and summarize experiences. Focusing on the achievements of building a first-class business environment in the field of intellectual property, timely sort out and summarize, publicize and promote typical experiences and innovative practices in optimizing the business environment, and carry out various forms of publicity and reporting to create a good social atmosphere and public opinion atmosphere. All regions should implement the work well, and at the same time, in light of the actual development of the region, actively reform and innovate, and take the lead in trials to promote more breakthroughs in optimizing the business environment in the field of intellectual property.