By Ding Yimin, China Features

    BEIJING, Oct.2 (Xinhua) -- Landlords of Beijing's biggest retail markets including the Silk Alley Market signed a memorandum with a group of international manufacturers of brand-name products in early June, 2006.

    They pledged to suspend or evict any tenants found selling pirated versions of products from a group of 23 international brands including Louis Vuitton, Prada, Adidas and Levi's.

    The memorandum will help ban fake goods from the major retail markets of Beijing, said European trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, who hailed the brands' unprecedented memorandum with the market owners as a "trailblazing action".

    The memo represented just one of China's recent measures to step up intellectual property right (IPR) protection, amidst the leaders' call for building up a nation of innovation.

    The country has strengthened enforcement of IPR protection laws and launched campaigns against violations at wholesale and retail markets, Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai said while meeting Mandelson.

    In 1982, China issued the Trademark Law. Then in 1984 and in 1990, the Patent Law and Copyright Law were also issued one after another.

    "China had managed to set up a quite complete legal system of IPR protection in the 1990s," said Zhao Chunshan, secretary-general of China Intellectual Property Society (CIPS).

    Statistics from the Supreme Court show that in 2005, local courts at all levels received 3,567 criminal cases and 16,583 civil cases of IPR violation, up 28.36% and 20.66% respectively over 2004.

    "As far as I know, at least 300,000 law-enforcers and other people are involved in IPR protection in China," Commerce Minister Bo said, adding that 13,000 people were arrested for IPR violations between 2000 and 2005.

    China's fast economic development has been based on improved IPR protection, not the other way round, said Bo, "we would definitely not promote development of trade growth at the cost of IPR infringement."

    After becoming a member of the World Trade Organization, China has strictly abided by the WTO obligations in terms of IPR protection and has been dealing with IPR disputes with the United States, the EU and Japan in a cooperative way, said Deputy Minister of Commerce Jiang Zengwei at a press conference in April.