On Perfecting The Legal System Of Patent Protection Of Traditional Chinese Medicine In China

Chinese medicine is a tremendous asset of our country and is the collective wisdom of the Chinese nation for thousands of years. Chinese medicine is a natural drug with a unique efficacy in the treatment of incurable diseases and chronic diseases, which is increasingly favored by many countries. With the integration process of the global economy and China’s entry into WTO, it has become an unavoidable trend for the Chinese medicine industry to embark on the international market. Implementing of the patent protection of Chinese medicine is the inevitable requirement to carry forward Chinese medicine as heritage and prevent free use of Chinese medicine intellectual property, which can also fully mobilize the creativity of our Chinese medicine technology professionals, improve the technique of the Chinese medicine industry, and enhance the market competitiveness of Chinese medicine.However, due to the late start of the patent system in China, the current patent law mainly refers to the western chemical patent protection system so that the inherent characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine cannot be adequately protected. There are many deficiencies of the Chinese medicine system in the examination benchmark, linkage system synergy, judicial remedies, etc. All these together with the misunderstanding in the industry cause a bottleneck in system and practice. This paper conducts the objective analysis for the status quo of patent protection of Chinese medicine and empirically researches the pharmaceutical companies of Chinese medicine in the East China. Meanwhile, this paper extracts the learning from the protection system of the advanced countries and analyzes both of the theory and the practice in order to perfect the patent protection system of Chinese medicine with feasible countermeasures and suggestions.This thesis is composed of four parts:The first part gives an overview of the patent protection of the Chinese medicine, and focuses on the analysis of the definition of Chinese medicine, the value and significance of Chinese medicine patents as well as the object scope and legal characteristics of Chinese medicine patent protection. The second part introduces the history and current status of the patent protection system of Chinese medicine and analyzes the domestic Chinese patent applications in terms of age, type of distribution, technology and rights ascription. Taking pharmaceutical industry of Chinese medicine in the East China as the research object and leveraging questionnaires, interviews with experts, statistical methodology of multiple linear regression analysis, the author in this part of the thesis analyzes the objective situation of local Chinese medicine patent protection and the attitudes of professionals in the pharmaceutical industry as well as explores the legal issues on the patent protection of Chinese medicine.In the third part the author conducts a comparative research of the patent system and patent protection of Chinese medicine and herbal medicine in other countries of the world. The author also pursues a comparative analysis on the number of botanicals invention patent applications in China and other countries, and then summarizes the theoretical experience and practical learning that China can take as reference.The author proposes, in fourth partthe improvement of the legislation in relation to patent protection of Chinese medicine, puts forward feasible suggestions on how to better safeguard the patent intellectual property of Chinese medicine for China and Chinese enterprises. The suggestions include strengthening the linkages between the Chinese medicine patent protection laws and regulations, improving the patent examination benchmark system of Chinese medicine, consolidating the coordination across the departments and the patent information disclosure mechanism, promoting the standardization of Chinese medicine patent system; establishing the compensation mechanism during Chinese medicine patent period, and moving forward the internationalized legal system for Chinese medicine.