Four government departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, issued a notice on October 23 aimed at further preventing unscrupulous intermediary agencies from affecting the cultivation and recognition of high-quality small and medium-sized enterprises, and at continuing to polish the "gold-lettered signboard" of specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative enterprises.
The notice specifies that in the recognition of specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative SMEs and the preliminary review and recommendation of specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative "little giant" enterprises, provincial-level SME authorities should improve review mechanisms and standardize whole-process management, effectively cutting off the channels through which intermediary agencies interfere with the review work by means of rigorous review procedures.
SME authorities should ensure that enterprises fully understand application policies and review procedures, promptly release and respond to hot issues, and reduce information gaps.
The notice requires that SME authorities strengthen the comparison and verification of key data, study and establish a front-end patent screening mechanism, and explore the use of technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data.
SME authorities, cyberspace authorities and intellectual property authorities should jointly rectify acts by application-related intermediaries including publishing false information, distorting the interpretation of relevant application and recognition policies, releasing false promotional and advertising information related to application services, and soliciting business by using guaranteed commitments about application results as gimmicks.
In addition, for enterprises involved in falsifying data or materials, SME authorities will revoke their recognition and bar them from reapplying for three years. Typical cases of unscrupulous intermediary agencies will be reported on the gradient cultivation platform for high-quality SMEs.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will next strictly organize the recognition of specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative "little giant" enterprises, and through methods such as quality evaluation for the specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative development of SMEs, special inspections of work on SMEs and high-tech enterprises, and unannounced inspections of specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative SMEs, improve the quality of cultivation and recognition of high-quality SMEs and prevent the influence of unscrupulous intermediary agencies.
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