Intellectual property rights can guarantee independent innovation technology in the field of energy conservation and environmental protection. Once an independent innovation technology in the field of energy conservation and environmental protection is made public, it is difficult for the owner to effectively control it, which means that externalities and "hitchhiking" problems will inevitably arise. The so-called externality of technological innovation refers to the free benefits of this technology to society and others. The so-called "hitchhiking" refers to the behavior of gaining benefits from others or society without paying any cost.
If we protect the intellectual property rights of independent innovative technologies in the field of energy conservation and environmental protection, the situation will be very different: from the user's point of view, users must pay the corresponding costs when using innovative technologies, while inventors have the right to get certain remuneration. Free use by others is infringement and should bear legal responsibility. As far as the inventor is concerned, he must first disclose the content and scheme of his technology and reasonably limit the term and scope of his rights. This not only ensures the application and dissemination of innovative technology, but also ensures the interests of creators, arouses their enthusiasm for technological innovation, creates more knowledge products for social energy conservation and environmental protection, and finally realizes energy conservation.
A virtuous circle of independent innovation technology research and development, dissemination and application in the field of environmental protection.
Technological innovation and intellectual property protection in the field of energy conservation and environmental protection are two complementary issues. While promoting technological innovation, we must maintain market operation rules from the perspective of intellectual property protection and create a good social atmosphere for technological innovation.
On the other hand, with the rise of knowledge-based economy and the deepening of economic globalization, opening wider to the outside world and absorbing foreign capital have become the inevitable choice for underdeveloped areas to accelerate technological progress and economic development. As a relatively backward area in the field of energy conservation and environmental protection technology, China has been striving to create a good investment environment in recent years.
Great progress has been made in attracting foreign investment.
However, in recent years, the outstanding problem in introducing foreign capital and developing energy-saving and environmental protection technologies is that foreign investors often adopt a comprehensive intellectual property strategy, that is, using trademarks, patents, copyrights and trade secrets to expand the intellectual property protection of their energy-saving and environmental protection products in China in an all-round and three-dimensional way and set up "barriers" for their energy-saving and environmental protection technologies.
"。 For example, while increasing investment in local energy-saving and environmental protection facilities, we can obtain intellectual property rights through a large number of patent applications, and take advantage of the low level of local technology to occupy a favorable position before local enterprises have the ability to compete with them, thus establishing or maintaining a monopoly position in related fields. In the high-tech field of energy conservation and environmental protection, the number of patent applications filed by foreign companies is much higher than that of domestic counterparts. At the beginning of the introduction of core technology, they didn't add patent fees to the core technology, but waited until enterprises started to do industry and began to pursue patent royalties to earn profits from the core technology. For products and services with low technical threshold in the field of energy conservation and environmental protection, as well as standardized products and labor-intensive products, they are less dependent on patent protection and use trademarks.
The way to protect.
Case: The weak awareness of intellectual property rights of battery manufacturers in China is still a "soft rib".
In May, 2003, American Energizer Holdings and its battery production subsidiary Eveready filed a lawsuit with the US International Trade Commission (ITC), suing 24 domestic and foreign battery companies, including seven China companies, because their patents on mercury-free alkaline manganese batteries were infringed, requiring ITC to investigate and prohibit the mercury-free alkaline manganese batteries produced by these companies from entering the US market. The seven China enterprises are: Fujian Nanping Fu Nan Battery Co., Ltd., Guangdong Zheng Long Co., Ltd., Sichuan Changhong Electric Co., Ltd., Guangzhou Hutou Battery Group Co., Ltd., Ningbo Leopard King Battery Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Sante Battery Co., Ltd. and BOC Ningbo Battery Co., Ltd.
In June 2004, ITC ruled that China lost the case. The Chinese side insisted on appealing, and the ITC Judicial Committee composed of new members finally ruled that there was no infringement in China, denying the validity of the plaintiff's patent right. However, this result is rare for China enterprises to encounter "Section 337" in recent years. Regarding the so-called patent infringement, the head of Fu Nan's foreign legal affairs said that he was completely unprepared. As the battery manufacturer with the highest sales volume and brand awareness in China, Fu Nan is often infringed by counterfeit products. For this reason, they applied for trademark protection in China, North America and Europe several years ago, but they never thought of applying for a patent-they never thought that the production of mercury-free alkaline manganese batteries was an original technology.
Although seven battery companies in China have turned around the situation in patent infringement cases, it also reveals that "weak intellectual property concept" is still the weakness for China enterprises to further enter the international market. In fact, almost all foreign-related intellectual property disputes between BYD and Sanyo, Sony, Huawei and Cisco, Shenzhen Jin Dong and Intel, Shenzhen Torch Power and sigmate in the United States have one thing in common: on the one hand, China enterprises rarely apply for their own patents abroad, even domestic patents, once they encounter lawsuits, there is basically no room for bargaining; On the other hand, many enterprises in China have not realized that intellectual property is an important means to expand market share and increase income. China enterprises have no patent fee income, and competition mainly depends on price.
Faced with the threat of being accused of patent infringement, there are only three ways out: either paying a high license fee, going to court, or voluntarily withdrawing from the market. Both of them will put the enterprise in a passive or life-and-death situation.