Ma Yide: Promoting the Innovative Development of China's Intellectual Property Undertakings
Intellectual property (IP) holds a vital strategic position in the construction of Chinese-path modernization, particularly in achieving high-level scientific and technological self-reliance, developing new quality productive forces, and promoting high-quality development. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, General Secretary Xi Jinping has attached great importance to IP work. He has put forward a series of important expositions centered on major issues such as strengthening the top-level design of IP protection, improving the rule of law in IP protection, strengthening full-chain IP protection, deepening the reform of IP protection systems and mechanisms, coordinates the advancement of international cooperation and competition in the IP field, and safeguarding national security in the IP domain. These expositions fully reflect our Party's profound grasp of the laws governing IP development and represent a concentrated manifestation of the Party's wisdom in state governance and administration within the field of intellectual property. General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important expositions on IP work have guided China's intellectual property cause to achieve an innovative transcendence of the traditional IP paradigm at the levels of value concepts, functional mechanisms, and governance methods. Faced with the new situation of the accelerating evolution of the global IP governance landscape, we must deeply study and implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on IP work, and realize the transition of China’s independent intellectual system for IP from construction to refinement on the basis of promoting the continuous development of the IP cause.
From Private Rights Protection to the Enhancement of Public Welfare: A Major Breakthrough in IP Value Concepts
Since the start of the New Era, General Secretary Xi Jinping has profoundly recognized the limitations of the traditional IP discourse system, which emphasizes private rights protection in isolation, and has proposed a more comprehensive and systematic valuation of intellectual property. General Secretary Xi Jinping has clearly defined the developmental positioning of IP in our country, emphasizing that IP protection work is related to the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, to high-quality development, to the happiness of the people’s lives, to the overall situation of the country’s opening-up, and to national security. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "We must persist in taking ourselves as the core, putting the interests of the people first, and ensuring fair and reasonable protection," emphasizing the need to "both strictly protect intellectual property and ensure that the public interest and innovation incentives are both achieved." These important expositions fully demonstrate our Party's people-centered development philosophy and are a concentrated expression of the Party leading a self-driven breakthrough in China's IP value concepts to serve the fundamental interests of the broadest masses of the people.
For a long time, Western developed countries have leveraged their first-mover advantage to construct a set of IP discourse systems centered on the protection of private rights and based on market rules. Through international treaties such as the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), they have formed the dominant rules of the global trading system. On the surface, under this private rights protection mechanism, innovators from all countries can obtain IP protection, thereby stimulating and nurturing innovation. However, this seemingly equal set of rules ignores the realistic gaps between first-movers and latecomers, and between developed and developing countries, in terms of innovation levels and their differing demands for access to knowledge. The monopoly rights granted by legislation have brought the free flow of knowledge into the scope of private property rights; consequently, high monopoly profits are transferred from knowledge-poor developing countries to knowledge-rich developed countries. The knowledge gap between first-movers and latecomers continues to widen, leading to "low-end locking" [1]. The demands for knowledge access from developing countries were not fully considered in the institutional design, resulting in a series of public crises in areas such as public health, environmental protection, and food security.
General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on IP work transcend the theoretical limitations of treating the relationship between IP and economic development simplistically and taking private rights protection as the sole orientation. From a holistic perspective of comprehensive development, he explained the composite value attributes of the IP system and established the value orientation for China’s IP protection. This reflects the philosophy of reasonably selecting IP protection levels within the scope of sovereignty, based on the country's developmental stage and current conditions, to achieve a balance between public interests and innovation incentives.
To give full play to the important role of the IP system in socialist modernization, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the Outline for Building a Powerful Intellectual Property Nation (2021–2035). This aims to comprehensively improve the levels of IP creation, utilization, protection, management, and service, further elevating IP from a mere market tool to a national strategic resource, and shifting the focus of IP system development from private rights protection to the implementation of public policy. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized support for the waiver of IP rights for vaccines, which reflects a value position that attaches equal importance to IP protection and human welfare, guided by the interests of the people.
This value position is not only reflected in domestic IP protection but also constitutes an important proposition for China's participation in global IP governance. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "We must coordinately promote international cooperation and competition in the field of intellectual property" and "adhere to the principles of openness, inclusiveness, balance, and universal benefits." The principle of openness and inclusiveness requires that global IP governance adhere to extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits, rejecting unilateralism and the bullying of the small by the large, and forming governance consensus through multilateral dialogue. The principle of balance and universal benefits emphasizes the dual attributes of intellectual property as both private property and public wealth. Global IP governance must coordinate the relationship between the interests of one's own country, the interests of other countries, and the common interests of all humanity, promoting extensive cooperative innovation and universal prosperity. This multi-dimensional, open, and balanced orientation has opened up a new realm of theoretical research in intellectual property and contributed Chinese wisdom to the innovation of the global governance system.
Self-Driven Innovation in the Functions of the IP System: The Key Link in Breaking Through the Innovation Chain
Correctly exerting the role of the IP system can better protect and stimulate innovation, helping to achieve high-level scientific and technological self-reliance. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "We must improve the new-type whole-nation system under the conditions of a socialist market economy, and give full play to the role of the state as the organizer of major scientific and technological innovation." The key to playing the state's role as an organizer in major sci-tech innovation lies in building an effective institutional system to support and safeguard innovative activities. As the core institutional arrangement for stimulating and protecting innovation, the IP system can only effectively allocate innovation resources, promote breakthroughs in key core technologies, and support high-level sci-tech self-reliance if it fully aligns with national innovation strategic goals. General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on IP work provide ideological and action guidance for China's IP system to break through the narrow definition of a traditional private rights tool and deeply integrate into and serve the overall situation of the national innovation strategy.
The traditional IP system is rooted in the market economy and has constructed a mechanism to stimulate innovation by granting "private monopolies," holding that the market is the effective way to allocate innovation resources. However, the marketization mechanism of IP is not omnipotent. In practice, the traditional IP system has also exposed some prominent problems: phenomena such as "patent thickets" [2] and "patent evergreening" [3] have, to a certain extent, slowed the pace of innovation. In the wave of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, major innovative breakthroughs increasingly rely on large-scale scientific research facilities and massive resource inputs; relying solely on market-based mechanisms often makes it difficult to efficiently integrate different innovative forces and guide them to serve national strategic goals.
In response to the market failures, innovation stagnation, and deficiencies in serving major national strategic needs increasingly exposed by the traditional IP system, General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on IP work have guided and promoted the strategic and functional reshaping and sublimation of China's IP system. The functional positioning of China's IP system has achieved a creative transformation, innovatively integrating national strategic guidance, the resource coordination of the new-type whole-nation system, and the vitality of the market economy. It has successfully developed into a key bridge and core bond connecting national strategic goals, organized scientific research breakthroughs, and market-based innovation forces. This functional positioning ensures that IP can both effectively stimulate and protect innovation and accurately align with the country's long-term development and security needs, guiding the convergence of innovation elements toward key fields.
China attaches great importance to the role of IP protection in stimulating the innovative enthusiasm of market entities. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Property rights protection, especially intellectual property protection, is an important aspect of shaping a good business environment. We must improve laws and regulations related to intellectual property protection and improve the quality and efficiency of intellectual property examination. We must speed up the construction of intellectual property protection systems in emerging fields and new business forms." Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, China has successively revised the Patent Law, Trademark Law, Copyright Law, and other relevant laws, increased the intensity of punitive damages for IP infringement, and strengthened legal protection for market entities. At the same time, IP financial innovation has continued to develop, with tools such as IP securitization and IP insurance being continuously introduced, and the market value of IP being fully released. Data shows that as of June 2025, the number of high-value invention patents per 10,000 people in China reached 15.3, which is 2.4 times the figure from 10 years ago. According to the results of the Fifth National Economic Census released at the end of 2024, the added value of China's patent-intensive industries reached 16.87 trillion RMB in 2023, accounting for 13.04% of GDP, fully demonstrating the positive interaction between institutional incentives and innovative vitality.
China attaches great importance to giving play to intellectual property's function as a bridge connecting the market and scientific research forces. On the basis of adhering to the market's decisive role in the allocation of innovation resources, the government actively plays its role in guiding and integrating key sci-tech innovation elements to carry out collaborative innovation, thereby effectively overcoming the limitations of lack of synergy and fragmented innovation between market entities and scientific research institutions. Through the incentive and guidance mechanisms formed by IP creation, utilization, and protection, high-quality market innovation resources are attracted to actively connect and cooperate with national strategic sci-tech forces.
General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important exposition that "we must place the improvement of original innovation capacity in a more prominent position and strive to achieve more 'from 0 to 1' breakthroughs" has pushed the function of China's IP system beyond being limited to protecting existing innovation results. Instead, it has moved forward to the source of innovation, actively serving the entire chain of the national innovation strategy. From the construction of IP management systems in national laboratories to the design of collaborative innovation mechanisms for industry, academia, and research in new-type R&D institutions; from incentive policies for the transformation and application of IP in universities and research institutes to IP sharing mechanisms in international sci-tech cooperation, IP is becoming a key variable in breaking through the innovation chain, industrial chain, and capital chain, providing strong support for the development of new quality productive forces.
Self-Driven Innovation in IP Governance: Building a New Pattern of Systematic, Collaborative, and Full-Chain Governance
General Secretary Xi Jinping has gained profound insight into the complexity of IP governance and proposed a brand-new governance philosophy, emphasizing: "Intellectual property protection is a systemic project, covering a wide range of fields and involving many aspects. We must comprehensively use legal, administrative, economic, technical, and social governance means, and improve the protection system from the links of examination and authorization, administrative enforcement, judicial protection, arbitration and mediation, industry self-discipline, and citizen integrity, strengthening coordination and cooperation to build a grand protection work pattern." This important exposition transcends the binary opposition between "judicial dominance" and traditional "government control," pointing the way for the innovation of IP governance methods.
In Western developed countries, IP governance mainly relies on judicial dominance, promoting IP protection through private rights remedies, forming a court-centered governance model. This model not only has high remedy costs and long cycles but also cannot effectively respond to complex IP governance challenges. General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on IP work have guided China's IP governance to form a unique governance pattern characterized by systematic collaboration and full-chain governance.
Strengthening top-level design and the coordination of the organizational system. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, China has persisted in and strengthened the Party's overall leadership over patent work, continuously deepened the top-level design in the IP field, and successively issued important documents such as the Several Opinions on Accelerating the Building of a Powerful Intellectual Property Nation under the New Situation and the Outline for Building a Powerful Intellectual Property Nation (2021–2035), defining the roadmap and timetable for the construction of a powerful IP nation. The State Council established an inter-ministerial joint conference system for the implementation of the IP strategy, building an overall integrated mechanism from the central level to the local level.
Promoting the formation of a pattern of systematic collaboration and social co-governance. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, China has accelerated the application of social governance methods such as credit supervision, social oversight, and industry self-discipline in the field of intellectual property. It has improved the collaborative promotion mechanism for IP work, strengthening departmental coordination, central-local linkage, regional cooperation, and social co-governance. For example, in the field of e-commerce, platform enterprises have established IP protection alliances and developed intelligent identification systems to actively prevent and control infringements; in the field of copyright, short video platforms and content creators have jointly built a legitimate content ecosystem, greatly improving the efficiency of infringement governance.
Building a full-chain, full-cycle professional governance system. On the one hand, China has continuously strengthened the professionalization of IP adjudication, building a structure led by the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People's Court, with specialized IP courts in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and the Hainan Free Trade Port...
This professionalized adjudication system features the four Intellectual Property Courts as demonstrations, the 29 intellectual property tribunals of local courts as focal points, and the intellectual property chambers of various local courts as supporting pillars. On the other hand, administrative law enforcement has achieved "grid-based management" [4], establishing an intellectual property protection network that covers the entire country and pushing the "frontline of protection" [5] forward. At the same time, the national intellectual property operation service system is continuously improving. Institutions such as the National Intellectual Property Operation Public Service Platform and Technology and Innovation Support Centers (TISCs) are flourishing, providing support for the entire innovation cycle of enterprises.
Since the dawn of the New Era, innovations in governance methods have facilitated leapfrog development in China’s intellectual property undertakings. China’s metrics in several areas, including International Patent Applications under the PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) and the number of registered trademarks, have consistently ranked first in the world. As of June 2025, the number of valid domestic invention patents reached 5.01 million. Our ranking in the Global Innovation Index has risen from 34th in 2012 to 10th in 2025, making China the only middle-income economy among the top 30 in the index.
It is noteworthy that at the level of the intellectual property discourse system, the West still occupies a dominant position. Breaking the Western monopoly on discourse, constructing an autonomous Chinese knowledge system for intellectual property, and enhancing our country’s international discourse power [6] and influence are both historical missions entrusted to us by the times and China’s responsibility toward the progress of human civilization. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: “We must accelerate the construction of a Chinese discourse and Chinese narrative system, using Chinese theory to explain Chinese practice, and using Chinese practice to sublimate Chinese theory.” We must take General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important expositions on intellectual property work as our fundamental guidance. Grounded in the practice of building a "strong intellectual property nation," we must systematically summarize successful methods into "Chinese experience" in a timely manner and refine and sublimate them into "Chinese theory." Consequently, we shall construct a set of intellectual property discourse and narrative systems that are both rooted in Chinese soil and capable of bridging China and the world. This will promote the formation of an intellectual property theoretical system that possesses both Chinese characteristics and global significance, providing solid academic support and action guidance for our country’s high-quality development, and contributing Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions to the global governance of intellectual property.