An intellectual property rights complaint center will be established in Shanghai in the near future, the major economic engine of China.

The center will accept complaints and transfer cases to relative administrations. And it will monitor the handling of the cases, said Liu Minhong, a division chief of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration, on Tuesday.

If a case is delayed, the center will help to find out the reason and organize the involved departments to study the case so that each complaint can be dealt with seriously,

"It will offer more convenience to IPR owners for they can lodge whatever kind of complaints. And the IPR owners will know what kind of violations are involved," Liu said.

The channels to accept complaints in different government agencies are still available and the center will coordinate with the agencies, the official added.

Meanwhile, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Service Center Tuesday joined hands with the Shanghai Dragon Corp.

"We hope to set up more such cooperation centers with enterprises," said Li Yaoting, director of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Service Center.

Such centers will provide patent information to help local companies, particularly small and medium-sized units which do not have the resources to have their own IPR units, he said.

Li said the new center will provide free, timely and specific international patent information to Shanghai Dragon, adding that local firms can also apply to establish such patent information relationship with the center.

The local industrial and commercial administration dealt with 652 cases of foreign trademark violations in 2005, accounting for 58.8 percent of the total trademark infringement cases in the city.

(Shanghai Daily April 26, 2006)