Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi has called on domestic businesses to shoulder the social responsibility for the protection of intellectual property rights (IPR), and has urged them to make better use of the IPR to develop and protect themselves.

Wu, also head of the State IPR Protection Working Group, made the remarks while delivering a speech at a conference on Thursday on IPR protection and independent innovation for businesses held in Beijing.

The conference, organized by the Chinese Federation of Enterprises and the Chinese Association of Entrepreneurs, attracted more than 300 businesses from home and abroad, such as China Construction Bank, China Telecom, Lenovo, and Siemens (China). The participants signed a written proposal appealing to businesses to use copyright software at the conference.

Wu said that businesses are the main entities in market economy, in technological innovation, and in IPR creation, application and protection. She called on domestic businesses to keep enhancing the awareness of IPR protection and earnestly undertake the social responsibility for IPR protection.

She meanwhile urged them to establish and perfect an internal management mechanism for IPR protection in a bid to make IPR an integral part in the whole process of businesses operation.

"Independent innovation is the soul for the development of science and technology and the inexhaustible power for the development of a nation. No IPR protection, no independent innovation," she said.

The vice premier also pledged that the Chinese government will take more resolute and effective measures to continue making unremitting efforts to push for the IPR protection in the years to come.

To mobilize the whole society for IPR protection, China will set up reporting centers in 50 major cities across the country, Wu said.

(Xinhua News Agency February 24, 2006)