The impact of joining the WTO on intellectual property protection and explaining the importance of intellectual property protection

In the era of knowledge economy, intellectual property rights, as a strategic resource for an enterprise and even a country to improve its core competitiveness, have taken on an unprecedentedly important role.

Intellectual property rights are an individual or collective contribution to science. The exclusive rights enjoyed by law to the spiritual wealth created in the fields of technology, literature and art. Intellectual property is an intangible property right. Due to the rapid development of global science and technology and economy, the scope and content of intellectual property protection objects continue to expand and deepen, constantly raising new topics for intellectual property legal systems and theoretical research. The concept of intellectual property is the basis for intellectual property legislative activities, judicial practice and theoretical research, and is an issue that must be clarified. Therefore, intellectual property is not only still a dynamically developing concept and an area that urgently needs in-depth research. Our research on the concept of intellectual property is very necessary, and with the study of it and other issues, a series of theories in the field of intellectual property will continue to be clarified. issues, and guide the practice of intellectual property legislation, judiciary and administrative law enforcement, so that my country’s intellectual property legal system and theory can be gradually established and continuously improved

Due to the development of international economic and cultural exchanges, the regional nature of intellectual property has been affected by With the unprecedented impact, intellectual property legal relations have become increasingly internationalized, mainly reflected in the fact that the subject, object and content contain a large number of foreign-related factors. The subject of intellectual property legal relations refers to the persons who are confirmed to enjoy rights and assume obligations in accordance with intellectual property law, including individuals, collectives, legal persons, partnerships, etc. From the perspective of international exchanges, there are both domestic and foreigners. It has become very common for foreigners to enjoy intellectual property rights at home and for domestic residents to enjoy intellectual property rights abroad. The object of the intellectual property legal relationship refers to the object to which the rights and obligations between the subjects of the intellectual property relationship are directed. Intellectual property rights can be divided into two major categories: one is industrial property rights, including patent rights (invention patents, utility model patents and industrial designs); trademark rights (commercial trademarks, service marks and manufacturing trademarks). Industrial property rights is a broad concept, which includes not only industry and commerce itself but also agriculture, mining and transportation industries. The other type is copyright, also known as copyright, which mainly includes the author’s exclusive rights in literature, art, music, photography, film, television, computer software, etc., as well as the neighboring rights derived therefrom. The laws that protect intellectual property rights are mainly domestic legislation (patent law, trademark law and copyright law), and there are also international treaties. From a legal perspective, intellectual property rights have three characteristics: 1. Exclusiveness, which is also called exclusivity or monopoly. 2. Temporality, which means that the law protects intellectual property rights for a certain period of time. After the effective protection period, this exclusive right will terminate, and this intellectual achievement will become the basis of human society. wealth. 3. Territoriality, which refers to an exclusive right acquired under the law of a certain country. It is only valid within the territory of that country and is protected by the law of that country. It is invalid in other countries. Other countries have no obligation to protect it unless there is a treaty. Regulation.

As a kind of spiritual wealth and intellectual achievement, intellectual property is fluid. It can flow at home and abroad through various channels and methods. Science, technology, culture and art have no national boundaries. Especially since the 19th century, the development of the capitalist commodity economy and communications has promoted the exchange of science, technology, culture, and art on a global scale. Various newspapers, magazines, international academic conferences, scholar visits, international expositions, television, The emergence of broadcasting, library materials, satellite technology, and the Internet of computers has made it easy for certain intellectual property rights obtained in one country to spread to foreign countries. This kind of mobility and regionality of intellectual property rights are contradictory. Especially for Western industrialized countries, strict regionality is very detrimental to them. Because, on the one hand, they want to transport their advanced science, technology, patented products, trademarked goods, and literary and artistic works abroad to occupy the international market. On the other hand, they are afraid that these intellectual achievements will not be protected by law in the country where they are located, and may even be used for free, thereby increasing their competitors in the international market. Therefore, they hope that these rights obtained in their own country can also be protected by the laws of the relevant foreign countries. In this way, the issue of international protection of intellectual property rights arises. Today's world is an era of knowledge economy, and international protection of intellectual property rights is very important. In addition to the protection of foreign-related intellectual property rights through domestic laws, some countries and international organizations have also signed and formulated many international conventions on the protection of intellectual property rights. At present, the main international conventions for the protection of intellectual property rights include: (1) The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (referred to as the Paris Convention). The Paris Convention does not provide the contracting parties with a uniform set of patent laws and trademark laws. , which only stipulates several basic principles for the mutual protection of industrial property rights between contracting parties. These basic principles are: 1. The principle of national treatment. A Contracting State must extend the protection in industrial property rights that it accords to its own nationals in accordance with the law and to the nationals of other Contracting States as well. 2. Priority principle. A national of a member state first files an application in a member state for an invention, utility model, design or trademark. Within a certain period from the date of filing of the application (12 months for inventions, utility models, designs and trademarks) 6 months for a trademark), when applying to other member states with the same content, the date of the first application should be used as the date of subsequent applications. Within the priority authority, even if any third party files an application with the same content, Exclusive rights remain granted to applicants from Contracting States.

3. The principle of compulsory licensing. Each member state has the right to adopt legislative measures to provide for the approval of compulsory licenses under certain conditions to prevent possible abuse of patent rights by patentees, such as non-implementation or insufficient implementation of patent rights. However, compulsory licensing can only be taken when the patentee has not implemented the patent for 4 years from the date of filing the patent application, or 3 years from the date of approval of the patent rights (whichever is longer). 4. The principle of independence. Patent rights obtained in different countries for the same invention have nothing to do with each other. (2) "Patent Cooperation Treaty". The Patent Cooperation Treaty addresses the basic principles of international protection of patent rights. (3) The Madrid Agreement on the International Registration of Trademarks (referred to as the Madrid Agreement) is a supplement to the Paris Convention on the international protection of trademarks. (4) The basic principles of the "Berne Treaty for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works" are referred to as the "Berne Treaty": 1. The principle of national treatment for dual nationality 2. The principle of automatic protection 3. The principle of minimum protection 4. The principle of independent protection. (5) The main principles of the Universal Copyright Convention are: 1. The principle of dual nationality national treatment 2. The principle of conditional automatic protection 3. The principle of independent protection 4. The principle of minimum protection.

(6) "Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights", basic principles: 1. Principle of national treatment 2. Principle of most-favored-nation treatment 3. Principle of exhaustion of rights