IN BRIEF (Page 9)

CD copyright dispute

Taiwan-based Rock Records Co Ltd has taken three companies to court for copyright infringements, accusing them of producing or selling pirated compact discs, Shanghai Daily reported.

The three defendants are the Shanghai Lianjia Supermarket Co Ltd, a Guangdong-based technology company and the Liaoning Radio and TV Broadcast Publishing House. Rock Records is demanding a public apology from three defendants in the Legal Daily and a total of 280,000 yuan in compensation. It has asked the three companies destroy the pirated CDs.

The case came before the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court for the third time but the court has yet to determine a verdict. Rock Records said the copyrights of 20 of its songs were infringed.

The court heard that the third defendant, the publishing house asked the second defendant, the technology company to make 10,000 copies of the karaoke-mode CDs in 2003. The Shanghai Lianjia Supermarket Co Ltd, which manages Carrefour, told the court that all the CDs found in its Shanghai outlets were from a local audio-video company that gave assurances they were legal.

Rock Records accused the supermarket of failing to check the source carefully. A test carried out by the court showed that the legal CDs provided and the pirated CDs were from the same source.

The third defendant denied it had copied CDs from Rock Records. "The report only proved there were copies," said the attorney surnamed Wan for the Liaoning publishing house. He also questioned whether Rock Records had the right to the copyrights.

Evidence showed Rock Records was entitled to the copyrights.

Thriving sci-tech sector

China has 42 million people employed in science and technology and related industries, said a report, compiled by the China Association for Science and Technology. About 65.7 percent of them were below 40 years old, and the ratio of male to female was 2:1.

In 2005, the number of China's sci-tech employees stood at 35 million, according to then minister of science and technology Xu Guanhua.

According to the report, most of the employees were now in tertiary industries, with education having the largest amount, followed by manufacturing, building, public administration and social organizations.

However, there were only about 700,000 people, or 1.6 percent of the total, were in the agricultural sector, it added.

In terms of region, the more developed eastern China had the most sci-tech employees with about 48.8 percent of the total; central China had 28.3 percent and the large western region 21.6 percent.

New Peugeot R&D center

PSA Peugeot Citroen plans to build an automotive research and development center in China in a bid to cater for local demand amid a car boom, Shanghai Daily reported.

The new R&D facility will be located in Shanghai, and will cost 1 billion yuan, the company says in a statement posted on its Website. PSA says the new technology center will go into operation in September this year and have more than 500 engineers by 2010.

By teaming up with PSA's global engineering center and an existing local center run by its Chinese venture, the establishment of the new technical center, part of the French car maker's CAP 2010 blueprint, aims to strengthen its engineering capability for faster expansion on the Chinese mainland.

PSA has set a mid-term sales target of 1 million units in China by 2015 with a 5 to 6 percent market share, helping it to be a mainstream and profitable market player in the world's second largest auto market.

VP Xi's call to China's youth

Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping recently urged young people to make greater contributions to build China into a better society. Young people should be innovators and pioneers and strive for significant achievements, said Xi, who spoke to a group of young people during a meeting on scientific innovation.

Young people are the future of the country and the hope of the nation, he stressed. History has proved that young people in China are an important force for social progress, he said, adding that Chinese young people have made relentless efforts to fight for national independence and liberation and to strive for the country's prosperity and the public welfare.

Young people, especially those working in the fields of science and technology, should study hard to master advanced technologies in their areas of expertise and strive for scientific breakthroughs, he said.

He also stressed the importance of training innovators, saying that governments at various levels should create favorable conditions for young innovators.

Patent search system

The State Intellectual Property Office unveiled the China design patent search system at a recent opening ceremony.

The search system stores more than 4 million drawings and classifies them according to elements such as shape, color, design and line.

Semi-conductor lighting

The Management Office on the Semi-conductor Lighting Project of the National "863" Program launched the Semi-conductor Lighting R&D Fund, aiming to helping bridge the gap between enterprises from home and abroad, in terms of technology commercialization. The top priority is to foster a community of interests through joint input, resolve key technological issues in the development of semi-conductor lighting industry, and upgrade product grade.

Pirated goods seized

Chinese customs authorities seized 334 million items involving intellectual property rights (IPR) violations worth 439 million yuan last year, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said in a White Paper released recently.

The number and value of items rose 83 percent and 116 percent respectively year-on-year, according to the White Paper of Chinese Customs IPR Protection 2007. According to the report, the counterfeit goods seized by the GAC were primarily clothes, shoes, bags and cigarettes, and 99.8 percent of these fake goods were seized en route to export markets.

Gong Zheng, deputy director of the GAC, said China still faced mounting challenges on IPR protection in line with its booming foreign trade.

China's total trade volume was 2.17 trillion yuan in 2007 and more than 49 million customs claims were submitted. With increasing workloads, many customs offices had to remain open 24 hours a day, Gong said.

(China Daily 05/12/2008 page9)