Title: Enforcement Provisions of International Intellectual Property Law in the New Era

Author: Li Xiaofu

Abstract: China has always placed a high value on intellectual property rights and has formally applied to join the CPTPP, which encourages China to align its laws with the high-level of the CPTPP. This article compares the provisions contained in the CPTPP and in the Chinese domestic laws in the backdrop of the WTO-TRIPS regime, analyzes the main differences among relevant international agreements, and provides suggestions for improving China’s intellectual property rights enforcement system. The CPTPP’s intellectual property rights enforcement provisions go beyond the WTO-TRIPS mechanism due to its wider scope, stricter standards, clearer remedy standards and measures, and increased enforcement efforts of civil, border, criminal, and other types of enforcement agencies. Even if the Chinese Mainland has already had a sophisticated system of intellectual property law, there are still differences between it and the CPTPP in terms of the aforementioned features. In this regard, China can combine the local situation and do two things: the first is to improve its legislations in necessary areas, such as defining of intellectual property border protection measures for goods in transit and customs enforcement authority, and the second is to apply a flexible interpretation to the CPTPP provisions that give the members discretionary powers so as to strike a balance.

Keywords: Intellectual Property Rights, Enforcement, Chinese Mainland, CPTPP, WTO-TRIPS