CMBC Publishes IPR Strategy

2007-9-24

By Xie Li, Financial Times

China Minsheng Banking Corp., Ltd. released its intellectual property rights (IPR) strategy in Beijing on 21 September, which is known as the first attempt made by the domestic banking business to map out the IPR strategy at the strategic level. Under the witness of the related leaders and experts from CBRC, State Intellectual Property Office and Renmin University of China, CMBC awarded prize and certificates to the inventors of 2 patents and the awards became the first expenditure of the bank IPR incentive fund.

It is learned that CMBC has been concerning on IPR construction and management for 5 years. During this period, CMBC filed totally 16 patent applications, in which 2 patents were authorized, which has enabled CMBC to put its advanced on-line banking safety technology under proper legal protection; in trademarks, the bank has possessed the third well-known trademark “Minsheng” within the banking industry and has been entitled to the cross-industry protection known as the strongest protection for trademarks, which has consolidated the legal position for is basic identifications. Using it as flagship, CMBC has developed a protection system for its basic identifications and multi-level trademarks and will pave the way for building its brand images during its overseas quests. Currently, CMBC has obtained 7 overseas trademarks in countries and regions including the EU, Japan and Korea; domestically it applied for 44 basic identifications and 31 financial products identifications. In respect of copyright protection, the bank has realized the copyright risks brought about by the software applications and advertising. For respecting others’ rights and interests and meanwhile understanding the copyright interests from its own technical innovations, CMBC has strengthened its protection on the rights.

According to CMBC officials, the implementation of the IPR strategy is not only a need of meeting the regulatory requirements, it is however more of a need to stimulate the bank's innovativeness, mitigate the IPR risks during informationization and explore the new ways for creating wealth. The bank plans to deploy a special team within 3 to 5 years, which, under the direction of the Head Office, shall undertake the tasks to reorganize the innovation processes, collect innovative results using the standard means and build a unified database containing patents, identifications, copyrights and trade secrets for all of its 15 branch banks; meanwhile, an comprehensive incentive system is to be applied to its innovative personnel. Thus, innovation will be surely made to become the power source for the development of the whole bank. The strategy has been included in CMBC’s first five-year plan and has become an important part of work by CMBC in the time of strategic transition.

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