In October 2014, the UK organisation ACID -- which stands for Anti Copying in Design -- created an IP China Group in order to create a conduit for information sharing, building a strong and ongoing dialogue to share grass roots challenges and influence positive design and IP reform.

ACID tells us that their colleagues at the UK Intellectual Property Office are looking for feedback on experiences of the intellectual property system in China, and that bad-faith trade mark applications are a common problem faced by UK businesses operating in China, and can have a serious impact. The IPO has therefore prepared a short survey, which will take no longer than 10 minutes to complete. The survey is being run by an independent market research agency, SPA Future Thinking, and all responses will be treated confidentially.  While this survey is aimed at trade marks, the fact that there is a significant overlap between designs and trade marks means that this survey is of relevance to the design sector too. 

Please click here to access this survey (if you are not the right person to complete it, do feel free to forward it to a company or client which would be better able to complete it).

Time is short as the survey needs to be completed by 3 March -- that's tomorrow.