Lin Binghui, vice-director of the State Intellectual Property Office, made the remarks at a seminar in Xiamen yesterday during the Sixth China International Fair for Investment and Trade.

Lin said IPR are getting more and more important as globalization progresses.

"To some extent, the competition among the world's economies will be decided by the grabbing of IPR," Lin stressed, adding that a sound IPR protection environment in China would help attract overseas investors.

Lin said China's IPR system basically meets the standards required by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), a key part of World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements.

"Wide application of information technology in the field of the country's IPR protection has been dramatically promoted in recent years, as various databases have been almost completed," Lin added.

Posters and bulletins on intellectual property rights have been publicly displayed to help the public understand the need to protect such rights.

Following China's official accession to the WTO last December, the State Intellectual Property Office started to accept registration applications from foreigners for layout designs of integrated circuits.

Statistics from the office indicate that the country has received 1.37 million domestic and overseas patent applications since the Patent Law was implemented in 1985. A total of 231,367 - or 17 per cent - have come from foreign countries.

Last year, the top 10 countries to have applied for patents in China were Japan, the United States, Germany, South Korea, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Britain and Italy.

Lin's remarks were echoed by other seminar speakers.

"With the dramatic development of science and technology and the globalization of the world economy, intensified IPR protection will prevail for a comparatively long time in this century," said Dong Baolin, deputy director of the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce.

A stronger awareness of IPR protection needs to be cultivated nationwide, Dong said, warning that a lot needs to be done to compete with developed countries.

（China Daily September 10, 2002）