China has made giant progress in intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in the past 30 years, officials attending a forum said on Wednesday.

Yang Tiejun, deputy director of the State Intellectual Property Office, told the forum marking the IPR protection and China's 30-year anniversary of reform and opening up, said the country had been doing well in IPR system building in the past three decades, developing from the lack of a special IPR law or government body to today's comprehensive IPR legal system and management and social service system.

The country has also begun to voluntarily use IPR rules to safeguard national interests, in contrast with its past passive response to exterior pressure, he said.

IPR cases received by the courts have been rising steadily in the past 30 years, especially since the country's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, said Kong Xiangjun, with the IPR court under the Supreme People's Court.

According to Kong, between 2001 and 2007, local courts nationwide settled 74,200 IPR cases, an annual increase of 22.92 percent.

China has been increasingly tough in cracking down on IPR infringement and pirating, said Zhai Lifeng from the National Copyright Administration.

She added that local offices of the administration dealt with 66,000 infringement cases and confiscated 478 million pirated products from 2002 to 2007.

China's determination and actions in IPR protection has promoted the development of the cause, Yang Tiejun said.

As of October this year, the country had received 4.66 million patent applications and 6.25 million trademark applications, said Yang.

(Xinhua News Agency November 27, 2008)