Across China

Arts league flagged

China's professional martial arts league, the Wushu Masters Association, has been shortlisted as one of the top 10 copyright holders in 2009.

CCTV Sports and Entertainment, a subsidiary company to China Central Television, is the owner of WMA.

The company was shortlisted for successfully organizing and promoting the league.

The opening season in 2009 attracted more than 190 million viewers during the 19 matches between July and September.

Video platform

Ku6.com, China's third largest video website, plans to invest more than 200 million yuan in 2010 to buy copyrighted content and large bandwidth to build a copyrighted, high-definition video platform.

The platform will appear as a new website, separate from the present Ku6.com, in the first half of 2010, according to CEO Kevin Li.

The company will also invest another 100 million yuan in Ku6.com for content integration.

"Copyright and high definition are what our strategy is all about," said Li, adding that the new video platform will be like an online TV station.

Another leading video website, Tudou.com, has also said it would use 100 million yuan to develop content, including buying copyrighted resources and making video shows.

Fake Expo trinkets found

In order to implement its plan to protect the intellectual property (IP) rights of the Shanghai Expo 2010, Shanghai Municipal IP Joint Meeting Office organized a law enforcement campaign.

The municipal Urban Management Department and Bureau of Security sent law enforcement officers to investigate the legality of stalls around Oriental Pearl and Nanjing Road Street.

During their inspection, the officers found fake Expo memorabilia including the mascot "Haibao". The illegal goods were confiscated and disposed of.

Baidu sued in piracy case

Baidu, China's biggest search engine, is set to face a lawsuit for alleged piracy involving the country's leading online literature website, Shanda Literature Limited (SDL).

Baidu is the latest leading search engine to be entangled in high-profile legal action after Google was sued by Chinese novelist Mian Mian for alleged copyright infringement last week.

"Baidu's connivance at net piracy leads to more than 1 billion yuan of losses to our company every year," claimed SDL CEO Hou Xiaoqiang.

His company will sue Baidu in January, he said. It will ask Baidu to delete illegal download links and pay an indemnity of more than 1 million yuan.

The three websites owned by SDL boast the largest Internet portal in the world dedicated to original works of literature. SDL said the three websites have already accumulated copyrights to almost 40 billion Chinese characters-worth of original Chinese literature. The highest daily page view volume has exceeded 500 million.

High technology

The authorities of Heilongjiang are now viewing progress in science and technology as the major driving force in the province's economic and social development.

"The revitalization of Heilongjiang's economy should be based on progress in science and technology, which will offer strong support for our research and development and self innovation," said Ji Bingxuan, Party chief of Heilongjiang province.

In the first half of 2009, hi-tech industrial output value in Heilongjiang reached 157.51 billion yuan, increasing 44.1 billion yuan from a year ago and accounting for 13.6 percent of the province's gross domestic product (GDP).

Last year, the hi-tech industrial output value only contributed 7.4 percent of the GDP.

High technologies are now widely used in such sectors as energy, modern equipment manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, food processing, new materials and bio-medicine.

The province has to date implemented 30 key science and technology projects, aiming to strengthen the innovation capacity of a wide range of industries in Heilongjiang.

The number of hi-tech enterprises now ranks Heilongjiang the first in northeast China.

Editor's note: The IPR Special is sponsored by the State Intellectual Property Office and published by China Business Weekly. To contact the Intellectual Property Office, the IPR Special hotlines are 8610-64995422 or 8610-64995826, and the e-mail address is ipr@chinadaily.com.cn.

(China Daily 12/28/2009 page9)