The intellectual property (IP) rights awareness level among the business sector in Hong Kong remains high, an Intellectual Property Department survey said Thursday.

The survey showed more than 98.5 percent of respondents are aware that IP rights include copyright, trademarks and patents.

About 96.7 percent considered it necessary to protect IP rights in Hong Kong's business environment and 97.1 percent agreed that IP was a valuable company asset.

The percentage of companies that have registered their trademarks, patents or design in Hong Kong rose from 12.5 percent in 2004 to 30 percent this year. There is also an increasing trend to have registered four or more trademarks, patents or designs.

The percentage of establishments surveyed that have employees specifically responsible for IP management and who have prohibited their staff from committing IP infringement also rose, from 10 percent in 2004 to 22.6 percent this year.

A total of 58 percent and 70.8 percent of respondents said their company prohibited staff from using computers in uploading or downloading files for personal use during office hours and installing or using pirated computer software. This is higher than the 49.4 percent and 63.1 percent recorded in 2005.

The survey showed 54.6 percent of Hong Kong's business establishments would check the Trademark Registry record before using or adopting their own trademark for their goods or services. That is higher than the 40.6 percent recorded in 2004.

However, business executives still get confused between trademark registration and company registration. Only about half of respondents knew that registering a business or company name was different from registering a trademark.

Editor: Yan