Alibaba takes lead in protection of IP

E-commerce giant Alibaba Group has created an institute for intellectual property, as World Intellectual Property Day arrives on Thursday. The institute aims to help establish new rules for IP protection in the age of the internet and globalization.

Through the practical experience of fighting those who sell knockoff products on Taobao, Alibaba's online shopping platform, over the past two years, the group found that the traditional way of cracking down on counterfeiters was no longer effective because e-commerce has developed at high speed, Sun Jungong, vice-president of Alibaba, said in an interview with China Daily on Wednesday.

"We hope the institute will work as a platform to involve lawmaking and law-enforcing agencies, law professors, domestic and foreign experts in IP protection and those from platform governance and legal affairs departments of Alibaba to look at problems that e-commerce platforms encounter, and to find solutions," Sun said when the institute was announced on Friday.