Research On The Intellectual Property Protection Of Insurance Products

Insurance products are the core elements in the development of theinsurance industry. There are four viewpoints about the meaning ofinsurance products, including the viewpoint of intangible service products,the viewpoint of consumer compensation, the viewpoint of financialderivatives and the viewpoint of product hierarchy. Combining the relatedtheories and insurance practice, insurance products are considered to be acomplex of tangible products and intangible service which insurancecompanies provide to the consumers in the market. People can fullyunderstand the insurance products from the dimension of core product,the dimension of actual product and the dimension of additional product.Compared with other products, insurance products are special andcomplex products, intangible products, non-thirst consumer goods andgoods with strong heterogeneity.The innovation and development of insurance products is a complexsystem engineering. To develop a new product, insurance companiesshould follow the principles of legitimacy, efficiency,marketability andstandardization. And they should conduct market research, developcreative solutions, assess the creative program, design insurance termsand apply for approval from CIRC. As a social, public, creative andintangible knowledge products, insurance products should belong to theobject of intellectual property rights and should be protected by law.From the point of view of theoretical discussion, the justice principle, thelabor property rights theory, the motivation theory and the theory ofpublic goods can provide theoretical support for intellectual property protection of insurance products.At present, China’s intellectual property protection of insuranceproducts is almost blank which make insurance products homogeneous.Therefore it is necessary to strengthen the intellectual property protectionof insurance products, and this is very important to insurance companiesand the insurance industry. Due to the restrictions of thought andexpression dichotomy principle and originality principle, there is a certainlack of copyright protection of insurance products under the copyrightprotection mode. But our government can still set the rules to make up forthe defect including defining insurance products as legal work, setting thecontent of the copyright of insurance products, setting reasonableprotection period of time on the copyright of insurance products, defininginfringing standards and developing registration rules. Under the patentprotection mode, insurance products can be protected by business methodpatent, but Chinese government is very cautious on business methodpatent of insurance products now. Under the new situation, ourgovernment should establish business method system of insuranceproducts which is suitable for China’s national conditions. Meanwhile,insurance companies should strengthen the protection of business methodpatent of insurance products. In addition, trademark protection mode andtrade secrets protection mode are useful ways to the intellectual propertyprotection of insurance products.