A Chinese legal expert on Wednesday said China needs a comprehensive Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) warning system to direct domestic enterprises to smoothly register their patents overseas.

Jiang Zhipei, presiding judge of the third civil court of the China's Supreme People's Court said in an interview with Xinhua prior to the 22nd Congress on the Law of the World that an IPR warning system refers to a comprehensive and accurate grasp of the world's patent registration situation in every industry and suggestions on patent research directions to enterprises and institutes.

"For example, in the electronics industry, there are already several hundred patents registered by foreign countries. China's relevant governmental departments on IPR should first learn where the industry's patent registration "vacancy" is and then suggest the relevant institutes and enterprises to take those "vacancies" as their research direction, so as to avoid useless work," Jiang said.

Jiang said China has established a full-fledged legal system to protect intellectual property rights. Chinese courts heard about 15,000 cases on IPR last year and at least 400 IPR laws offenders are put into prison every year.

Jiang said in the future China would try its best to become a participant in international IPR protection treaties.

(Xinhua News Agency August 11, 2005)