(Yicai) April 25 -- Shanghai will hasten its development into a international hub for intellectual property protection and continue to create a sound environment for global businesses, according to the director general of the Shanghai IP Administration.

Shanghai protects the IP rights of Chinese and foreign companies equally, Rui Wenbiao said today. Over the past three years, it has handled over 60 administrative adjudication cases of foreign patent infringement disputes, investigated and dealt with more than 1,000 foreign trademark infringement cases, and included nearly 100 trademarks of foreign firms in the Catalogue of Key Trademarks in Shanghai, he added.

Regarding the cross-region IP protection issues that foreign companies are concerned about, Shanghai will make further regional law enforcement cooperation, Rui noted. Major cross-region cases will be submitted to the National IP Office for administrative rulings so the authorities can jointly crack down on such infringements, he said.

Shanghai will develop IP pledge financing to solve difficulties, including high expenses for small and medium-sized asset-light and startup technology enterprises, Rui noted regarding recent documents the city crafted to promote patents' transformation. By the end of next year, the patent and trademark pledge financing registration scale in Shanghai will exceed CNY30 billion (USD4.1 billion), benefiting more than 2,000 SMEs, he pointed out.

Editor: Martin Kadiev