Employment Invention Regulation (Regulation), accompanied by disputes, has finally been submitted to the State Council for consideration and been included within the legislation plan, it has taken three years for the draft from research since 2010 to draft accomplishment in 2013. However controversies still exist in the IP industry despite its submission, the expert verification meeting held in May was a reflection of this. The Department of Treaty and Legal Affairs of SIPO which is responsible for the draft work has been brought under the spotlight.

The Regulation, featured with innovation, apparently aims to protect employee innovators. However, the legislator seems to have fallen into a rather awkward situation, neither enterprises nor employee innovators are satisfied with the Regulation. Enterprises believe that they are forced to take on a heavier cost and burden, and the market is over interfered by laws; while the employee innovators hold that they have been deliberately placed in their boss’s antithesis, in addition some idealistic legal provisions are hard to be put into practice. The legislator though tried hard to design a balanced plan, played a thankless role in the whole process.

Does the law interfere too much? Or the problem can not be solved only by market? As established on the basis of labor relations, the natural characteristic of employment invention remuneration system determines that the Regulation must face some pains when it was first introduced. Due to the complexity of the development of Chinese market, the introduction of a new law never comes easy. Despite the challenges from the IP industry, the legislation related work, including research, expert verification meeting and opinion soliciting meeting, progressed in an orderly manner. Transparent and open, while improving the quality of legislation, the legislator seems to convey the attitude: balance and guidance.