In order to continuously strengthen the administrative protection of intellectual property rights, vigorously improve the level of intellectual property protection, and create a better environment for innovation and business, the China National Intellectual Property Administration recently released the Work Plan for Administrative Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in 2026 (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"). The Plan outlines the administrative protection of intellectual property rights in 2026 from twelve aspects, including improving the rules and regulations of the intellectual property system, strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights at the source, and enhancing administrative adjudication of patent disputes. Leveraging the advantages of intellectual property administrative protection and innovation is the primary driving force for development, and protecting intellectual property is protecting innovation. Strengthening administrative protection is an objective need to cope with complex market environments and address pain points in safeguarding rights. Administrative protection has the advantages of high efficiency, low cost, strong professionalism, and simple procedures. Law enforcement departments can intervene through administrative means according to their authority, effectively reducing the cost of safeguarding rights. The Patent Law, Trademark Law and other laws endow administrative organs with the power to investigate and punish infringement, and strengthen administrative protection is a direct manifestation of administering according to law and fulfilling duties. ”Xu Shi, a researcher at the Beijing Science and Technology Innovation Center Research Base, said. Administrative protection has professional and systemic advantages. "The intellectual property administrative department integrates examination and authorization with law enforcement and protection, and has professional accumulation on technical issues such as patent infringement judgment and trademark approximate recognition, which helps to improve the accuracy of protection. Administrative protection can make overall use of administrative adjudication, administrative mediation, administrative guidance and other means, taking into account the source governance and end enforcement, case handling and industry norms, which is conducive to the formation of a broader protection pattern." Ma Yide, president of the School of Intellectual Property of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, said. The Plan emphasizes the promotion of administrative protection work through the rule of law thinking and legal methods. Firstly, the institutional supply is more complete. The "Plan" lists "improving the rules of the intellectual property system" as the primary task, clarifies the promotion of a new round of comprehensive revision and revision of the Regulations on the Protection of Integrated Circuit Layout Designs in the Trademark Law, and proposes to study and formulate administrative arbitration provisions for necessary patent disputes related to standards. Ma Yide stated that this reflects a shift in legislative philosophy from a "responsive" to a "constructive" approach, providing a more systematic legal basis for administrative protection. The 'Plan' for the first time clarifies the research and development of administrative adjudication and mediation regulations for disputes related to standard essential patents (SEPs), and includes them in the scope of overseas risk warning and monitoring. This fills the gap in China's SEP administrative resolution rules and constructs a multi-dimensional resolution mechanism of 'administrative adjudication+mediation'. At the same time, it is necessary to formulate and implement the "15th Five Year Plan for the Protection and Use of Geographical Indications", promote the coordination and consistency between the protection requirements for geographical indication products with the same name and the management rules for the use of collective trademarks and certification trademarks, and achieve the legal unity of "product protection+trademark management" for geographical indications. ”Xu Shi said. In addition, the focus of protection extends towards source control. Ma Yide introduced that the "Plan" emphasizes the implementation of "dual penalties" for patent applications and agency agencies, increases the crackdown on malicious trademark registration and hoarding, and shifts the protection threshold to the right acquisition stage. This governance approach is in line with the concept of preventive governance in the construction of a rule of law government, and helps to continuously optimize the intellectual property ecosystem. The 'Plan' focuses on intellectual property protection in emerging fields, including artificial intelligence, and strengthens research on intellectual property protection needs and institutional rules. In Ma Yide's view, this reflects the strong foresight and institutional responsiveness of the 'Plan'. To effectively safeguard the development of emerging fields, it is necessary to adhere to an inclusive and prudent legislative orientation. The design of institutional rules should not only reserve sufficient space for innovation, but also reasonably delineate the boundaries of rights, prevent premature legislation from inhibiting new technological exploration, and avoid conflicts of rights caused by the absence of rules. Adhering to a problem oriented research path, it is necessary to conduct in-depth industry research and theoretical studies on topics such as the ownership of AI generated products, compliance paths for data training, and examination standards for algorithm patents. Based on a full understanding of technical characteristics and industry needs, rules and solutions should be carefully formulated. To achieve high-quality legal protection, it is necessary to adhere to the rule of law path of forward-looking legislation, refined administration, final justice, and collaborative governance. ”Zhao Jingwu, Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of the School of Law at Beihang University, said. Zhao Jingwu believes that at the judicial level, it is necessary to promote the unification of judgments, optimization of procedures, and appropriate remedies, and to establish a bottom line for safeguarding rights through authoritative and impartial final judgments. We need to strengthen the effectiveness connection between administrative protection and judicial protection, ensure the professional advantages of administrative rulings and the efficient coordination of the final authority of judicial trials, build an organic whole of "administrative efficiency and judicial finality", and enhance the overall protection effectiveness of emerging technologies and industries. At the governance level, the complexity of emerging fields determines that relying solely on legal provisions is no longer sufficient to address the risks they bring. A modern comprehensive governance framework with diverse governance and technological empowerment should be constructed. On the one hand, by consolidating the main responsibility of the platform, guiding new business models such as artificial intelligence and e-commerce platforms to implement compliance assessments and ethical reviews, and establishing the rule of law logic of "using technology to govern technology". On the other hand, establishing and improving non litigation dispute resolution mechanisms such as arbitration, mediation, and industry self-discipline can lower the threshold for innovative entities to protect their rights. Ma Yide stated that the 'Plan' will also expand the rapid collaborative protection mechanism to cutting-edge directions such as digital economy, integrated circuits, and quantum technology. This is a pragmatic institutional arrangement that, in the process of steadily advancing basic institutional research, provides timely and effective protection services for innovative entities through administrative protection measures, which better reflects the working method of parallel promotion of institutional research and practical exploration. The "Plan" focuses on strengthening trademark use management as the fourth key task, marking a significant shift in China's trademark governance logic from heavy registration and light use to equal emphasis on registration and use, and strengthening the governance of the entire chain of use. ”Zhao Jingwu believes that firstly, the focus of trademark regulation has shifted from front-end registration control to mid-range usage norms. The Plan directly points out the chaos of industry use, expanding the regulatory scope from the examination of trademarks themselves to the overall expression effect of trademarks in the commercial environment, focusing on regulating false descriptions, deception and misleading behavior of the public, and promoting the return of trademarks to the core function of identifying the source of goods. Secondly, the scope of regulation has been expanded from registered trademarks to unregistered trademarks, with increased supervision of the use of prohibited marks such as deceptive and harmful effects, and the implementation of normalized supervision of the prohibition clause in Article 10 of the Trademark Law. Finally, the governance scenario shifts from traditional single use to combinatorial abuse chaos. In response to the new problems of hidden and complex trademark use in new formats such as platform economy and live streaming e-commerce, this plan focuses on regulating the misidentification behavior caused by the combination of registered trademarks with product names, advertising slogans, and packaging decoration. Especially in the fields of food and medicine, children's toys, household appliances and other livelihood areas, this panoramic regulatory model can more effectively deal with borderline infringement and protect consumers' right to know and choose. In Ma Yide's view, legal protection can be improved from three aspects: firstly, enriching the normative basis for regulatory use. The current trademark law regulates the use of trademarks in a relatively principled manner. It is suggested to further clarify the constituent elements and legal responsibilities of false description and misleading use in the new round of amendments, and enhance the operability of the provisions. Secondly, promote the institutionalized operation of cross departmental collaboration mechanisms. The proposal of "improving the division of labor and cooperation mechanism with market supervision departments" in the "Plan" points out the direction, and it is advisable to form a stable work connection in information sharing, joint law enforcement and other links in the future. Thirdly, pay attention to the positive guidance of corporate compliance. The Plan requires "strengthening publicity and training on the use of trademarks by production and sales enterprises", which reflects the idea of administrative protection to strengthen education and guidance beyond punishment, and is conducive to gradually cultivating standardized and orderly trademark usage habits. (New Society)