Nearly 20 deputies to the First Session of the Seventh Shenzhen Municipal People’s Congress, the city’s legislature, have appealed for more efforts to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) in the fashion industry.
The proposal, led by lawmaker Pan Ming, was submitted at the annual session of the lawmaking body held at the Civic Center in Futian District yesterday.
According to Pan, president of Shenzhen Garment Industry Association, the fashion industry is not only an industry that is highly demanding in terms of innovation, but also a sector where intellectual property litigation frequently occurs.
“The vulnerability of fashion designs emerges from the lack of protection for original ideas and works. As a result, good designs and creative works have often become targets for reference and plagiarism,” said Pan.
Shenzhen is not only a city of technological innovation, but also a city of design. As a pilot demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics, Shenzhen is striving to become a model city of IPR protection. Thus, the protection of IPR in the fashion industry is of great strategic significance, according to the proposal.
“Shenzhen should beef up the protection of IPR to safeguard the legitimate rights of enterprises and protect original designs and products through technological and mechanism innovation,” said deputy Wei Xiaobing.
In the proposal submitted by Pan, it was suggested that a Greater Bay Area fashion IPR center be built in the city. The center will be a public service platform for protecting intellectual property in the fashion industry and will be guided by relevant government departments while being operated by industry associations.
It also suggested that Shenzhen should make full use of advanced technologies to build an electronic and intelligent IPR management platform, which can conduct rapid evidence collection and storage through new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, big data and Internet of Things.
In 2020, China’s garment industry recorded a total of 2,075 trademark cases, including 1,305 administrative cases, 1,770 civil cases and 343 criminal cases, of which 70 percent were online infringement cases, according to a white paper released in April this year.