Intellectual Property Management---- an Escort for TISCO to Innovate

Innovation is the core competitiveness of an enterprise. Enhancing IP management and protection on innovative achievements is the guarantee to keep enterprises in an invincible position. Over years, TISCO has been appreciating innovation and protecting innovative products to have established relatively sound IP management and protection system, offering a strong support to corporate development.

 

Innovative culture is the soul of innovation and development for an enterprise. In recent years, with the innovative concept of “to embrace innovation, respond to innovation and win by innovation” and innovative culture of “to encourage innovation by tolerating failure and disapproving of conservatism”, TISCO has been encouraging its staff to engage in innovative practices in their own posts. In 2015, TISCO revised Patent Management Measures comprehensively, and then published Proprietary Technology Management Measures on the basis of Patent Management Measures. The two Measures helped TISCO to establish gradually a dual-channels (i.e. patent and proprietary) IP management pattern with distinctive characteristics. The release of Proprietary Technology Management Measures, providing a broadening channel and more vitality to all-involvement innovation, has boosted IP management in the company to develop both in depth and breadth and brought out a large number of technologies, processes and products with their own intellectual properties. Particularly, during the process of patent application, the percentage of the invention patent, which requires a higher level creativity, began to exceed that of the utility model patent, which marks TISCO’s patents have improved dramatically in quality and original creativity, and become a new profit growth point for the company. In 2016, 72% patents submitted by TISCO were granted by SIPO (State Intellectual Property Office), with a 27% year-on-year increase. Moreover, 9 patents from TISCO won 2 golden awards, 3 sliver awards and 4 bronze awards at the 9^th International Invention Expo.

 

Trademark operation is not only an important way to create a brand and set up a brand, but also an important work for enterprise IP management. TISCO stated explicitly that it will quicken its step to establish trademark cultivation, management, application and protection system, a system which will adapt to the company’s development, to take a development path of large scale, branding and internationalization, finally to build TISCO a first class enterprise in registering, using, protecting and managing trademarks. In doing so, TISCO formulated Trademark Management Methods, followed “five Unified” principle, i.e. unified register, unified possessing, unified filing, unified management and unified use, and organized regularly training on trademark laws and regulations and trademark protection. At the same time, TISCO strengthen its cooperation with industrial and commercial administration, security and quality supervision sectors to protect exclusive right to use trademark and crack down any behaviors that would infringe legitimate rights of the company and damage the company image. The trademark of “TISCO” brand has been identified as Famous trademark in Shanxi Province as well as China Well-know Trademark, with a full coverage of 45 trademark categories, which shaped preliminarily a trademark application and protection system. Moreover, “TISCO” brand stainless steel was granted titles such as China Top Brand Product and China Most Influential No.1 Stainless Steel Brand.