THE first intellectual property bureau on China’s mainland, dealing with all legal issues concerning brands, patents and copyright, opened yesterday in the Pudong New Area.

Up to now, these three areas have been handled by different bodies resulting in complexity and inconvenience, said officials, who hailed the Pudong Intellectual Property Bureau as a significant development in intellectual property administration in China.

“The administration of those three areas used to be the responsibility of different authorities, such as those relating to industry and commerce, market supervision and science,” a city intellectual property official surnamed Ye explained. “Now these will all be handled by the bureau.”