“Protection of intellectual property” has been raised in the government’s report of this year. Facing the precipitate epidemic, traditional Chinese medicine, as the treasure of Chinese civilization, plays important role in anti-epidemic. Mr. He Zhimin, the deputy commissioner of State Intellectual Property Office advises that we shall strengthen protection on traditional Chinese medicines and set up pre-alarm system of rush registration trademark overseas, support brands of traditional Chinese medicine to become stronger.

In the investigation, He Zhimin said, there are still some outstanding problems in the protection on intellectual property of traditional Chinese medicine, although it gained rapid progress. He pointed out that, at present, the protection of intellectual property of traditional Chinese medicine covers patents, business secret, trademark, geographical indication and other relevant legal system and administrative protection measures, however, these kinds of protections are lack of organic link up, thus, these resulted in weak force and effects on protecting and encouraging the innovation of traditional Chinese medicine.

For the protection on the patent, 60% of patent applications related to traditional Chinese medicines were filed by individuals, quality of some applications needs to be improved. For the protection on trademarks, it is very common for some famous traditional Chinese medicine enterprises to have been rush registered overseas. For protection of geographical indication of famous-region drug, currently, there is still a lack of objective and accurate national standard aims to quality of medicines and clinical effects, the overall layout of germplasm resources is not enough, also the development of industry has been restricted, many of producing enterprises are in small scale and with low value-added.

Thus, He Zhimin proposed that the relevant authorities need to make deep investigation on the demands of intellectual property system in the development of traditional Chinese medicines, moreover, to shape protection system on intellectual property of traditional Chinese medicine with Chinese characters. First of all, strengthen linkage among agencies, innovate patent protection system for traditional Chinese medicine, set up intellectual property special investigation and protection list, combing with feature and special protection demands in the sector of traditional Chinese medicine, to formulate review rules of patents of traditional Chinese medicines. Secondly, strengthen protection on trademarks of traditional Chinese medicines, set up pre-alarm system for oversea rush registration, support the famous brands of traditional Chinese medicines become stronger; Thirdly, strengthen protection on protection of geographical indication of famous-region drug, standardize the approval of use of special logo of geographical indication, perform special action on protection of geographical indication, clean the market environment of famous-region drug. Fourthly, set up registration system of types of traditional Chinese medicines based on traditional knowledge and protection of business secret, moreover, make organic linkup with patent, trademarks, geographical indication and other rules of intellectual property protection, create a sound business environment through further strengthen law enforcement.