China will launch a nationwide campaign to step up its protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) in the coming months.

The nation will intensify its crackdown against copyright infringement to ensure a sound market order for domestic and overseas investors, Vice-Premier Wu Yi pledged at a meeting of the National Intellectual Property Protection Work Group in Beijing on Thursday.

She said the Chinese Government has been attaching great importance to IPR protection and has mapped out a series of related laws and regulations that meet the nation's conditions and global practice.

Both judicial and administrative means have been adopted to crack down on the violation of intellectual property rights, Wu said.

Meanwhile, China has actively contacted with foreign companies in the fight against piracy in recent years and the partnership has paid off, she said.

Law enforcement co-operation between China and other countries and regions is also highlighted.

Thanks to the joint investigation conducted by police between China and the United States, two US nationals were arrested on July 1 as leading suspects in a pirated DVD trafficking ring.

More than 210,000 copies of pirated DVDs and 200,000 yuan (US$ 24,096) plus more than US$ 67,000 were also seized.

Wu said the nation has become more capable of pinpointing and coping with copyright infringement.

Led by the State Copyright Bureau, the General Administration of Customs and Ministry of Public Security, local government departments have also made efforts in this regard.

Tianjin Customs in North China's Tianjin Municipality announced on Wednesday that it had seized 10,000 copies of compact discs suspected of violating the intellectual property right of Sony and Phillips.

Beijing police seized more than 500,000 pirated DVDs or VCDs in a crackdown campaign in April while its Guangzhou counterpart confiscated more than 7 million in a similar campaign in late March.

According to incomplete statistics, by the end of May, the nation had confiscated more than 120 million copies of illegal publications and ferreted out nine illegal production lines of compact disks.

Copyright protection problems remain a concern in China, Wu said.

The State Council will hold a special meeting to arrange the coming campaign to fight against piracy, she said.

While clamping down on illegal activities involving copyright infringements, China should also continue to improve its intellectual property systems, experts say.

(China Daily August 21, 2004)