After the reform and opening up, my country entered the “fast lane” of intellectual property legislation. The “Trademark Law”, “Patent Law”, “Copyright Law”, “Anti-Unfair Competition Law” and other intellectual property laws and regulations were successively issued, and a relatively complete basic framework of intellectual property law was gradually established.
In the 1980s and 1990s, my country’s basic national policy of reform and opening up was launched. It was in the transition stage from a planned economy to a market economy. Based on local needs and referring to relevant provisions of international treaties and foreign laws, various intellectual property laws and regulations were successively promulgated. In order to adapt to the needs of economic and social development, my country took the lead in formulating and promulgating the “Trademark Law” in 1982. The law puts the protection of the exclusive right of registered trademarks in the first place, pays attention to trademark management to supervise product quality, and clearly stipulates the relevant procedures for trademark application, examination and registration.
Subsequently, my country promulgated the “Patent Law” in 1984, building a patent system that meets both my country’s needs and international practices, creating conditions for my country to carry out international economic exchanges based on the patent system. my country’s copyright legislation also began during this period, but due to the controversy over the initial draft, the Copyright Law was finally promulgated in 1990 after 11 years of extensive solicitation of opinions. The law provides relatively detailed provisions on the ownership of authors and copyrights, the objects of copyrights, the contents of copyrights, the protection and restrictions of copyrights, etc.
With the continuous deepening of reform and the continuous expansion of opening up, my country initially established a socialist market economic system in 1992, which also prompted the first revision of my country’s Patent Law and Trademark Law in 1992 and 1993 respectively. Among them, the Patent Law increased the import protection of patented products, expanded the scope of patent protection, granted patent protection to chemical substances, medicines, foods, beverages and condiments, and added domestic priority and a series of procedural norms; while the changes in the Trademark Law are mainly reflected in the expansion of the scope of trademark protection, the inclusion of service trademarks, the exclusion of the registration of place name trademarks, the simplification and improvement of the registration and cancellation procedures of trademarks, and the increase of penalties for the crime of counterfeiting registered trademarks.
In order to ensure the healthy development of the socialist market economy, my country’s “Anti-Unfair Competition Law” was also promulgated in 1993. The law sets “general provisions” for market competition in the general provisions, and specifically regulates 11 types of unfair competition such as false propaganda, infringement of trade secrets, and defamation of business reputation in the specific provisions. So far, my country has fully outlined the basic framework of intellectual property law.