A new regulation on intellectual property rights (IPR) protection for exhibits comes into effect as of Wednesday.

The regulation was jointly issued by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce of China, the National Copyright Administration of China, and the State Intellectual Property Office.

According to the regulation, exhibition organizers have to strengthen the protection and auditing of IPR protection of exhibits.

An office should be established by exhibition organizers to handle complaints about IPR infringement if an exhibition is to be held for over three days, the regulation said.

The regulation also requires corresponding departments to accept and hear cases involving IPR infringement, including those for patents, trademarks and copyrights.

Those exhibition organizers and participants infringing IPR may be prohibited from holding or joining exhibitions again.

In January this year, about 1,000 organizations in China's exhibition industry jointly signed a declaration, promising to rule out any IPR infringement in their exhibitions.

(Xinhua News Agency March 1, 2006)