Sustainable Corporate Governancet

Intellectual Property Management

◾ Protection of Business Secrets

PLANET’s brand, product design and output are assets of the company. To safeguard its assets, the company has established the “Regulations Governing Business Secret Management” to prevent infringement of the company's trade secrets, trademarks, patents, copyrights and other intellectual property rights. The custodian of the company's intellectual property rights should be responsible for keeping and safeguarding PLANET’s business secrets, and should not disclose them at will.

PLANET expressly stipulates the confidentiality agreement and ownership of intellectual properties in the labor contract. Newly-recruited employees receive relevant education and training after reporting to duty. Relevant units have also strengthened employees’ awareness of intellectual property protection comprehensively and constantly required employees and relevant external parties to ensure information security, thus avoiding business losses caused by outflow of intellectual properties.

◾ Patent Protection

To further encourage technological innovation, PLANET has established the “Research and Development Innovation Incentive Measures” and the “Innovation/Improvement Proposals Incentive Measures” to motivate employees to file various patent applications through a diversified incentive system, thus to enhance product differentiation and market competitiveness.

PLANET regularly conducts evaluation and analysis of the current situation of the industry and its competitors, and takes necessary legal measures in conjunction with legal affairs firms and patent law firms if it locates any possible infringement of its patents. The company constantly reviews the status of all relevant patent applications and conducts evaluation on patent extension and invalidation so as to effectively manage its patents.

In 2023, PLANET obtained 4 patents. The company has obtained 42 patents in total over the years. Among them, 6 patents are ESG-related patents, namely "energy-saving" and "renewable energy" patents.

Internal auditors conduct quarterly patent ownership and expiration control audits according to the annual audit plan to ensure the validity of intellectual property rights.