Nov.28 (China IP News) -- "It is my very first time to visit China. The great achievement of State Intellectual Property Office of the P.R.C (SIPO), the number of staff at SIPO and the huge volume of Chinese designs made extremely impression on me." said Mr. Christian Archambeau, Deputy Executive Director of European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). In an interview of China Intellectual Property News (CIP News) during 2016 ID5 Annual Meeting, Archambeau spoke highly of the ID5 and of the bilateral cooperation between SIPO and EUIPO.

In recent years, EUIPO launched fruitful IP cooperation with SIPO. According to Archambeau, as early as 2012, SIPO and OHIM (EUIPO's predecessor) have signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on bilateral cooperation. A great series of achievements have been made over the years. "As the largest EU agency dealing exclusively with IP rights and the office dealing with the largest amount of design applications, the great relationship between SIPO and the EUIPO is certainly worth highlighting," said Archambeau. To him, communications between the two offices are very friendly and constructive. "We are always delighted to learn more about what we have in common and any differences so we can share best practices," he added.

With more and more Chinese companies going abroad, the European market shows its welcome to them. "I have seen the exhibition of Chinese companies' designs. Companies like Lenovo made outstanding achievements in IP field." Archambeau expressed great willingness to work together with SIPO in providing better service on IP for industries, especially for those Chinese companies which go abroad.

Archambeau expressed his appreciation of SIPO's accomplishment in the ID5 Annual Meeting in Beijing. "In 2016 ID5 Annual Meeting, the most important thing from EUIPO's perspective is that we focus on projects and outcomes and not simply studies." Archambeau declared the main goal of EUIPO to implement the outcome. Besides, Archambeau showed his interests in ID5 temporary website, which was launched during the annual meeting, "This should help publicize what we are doing and make things more transparent."

"Next year EUIPO is looking forward to hosting the third round of ID5 mid-term and annual meetings. For the future cooperation with SIPO, we are finalizing a new MOU that will further enhance cooperation," said Archambeau, "Under the framework of EUIPO's new Strategic Plan 2020, we hope to strengthen the cooperation between the two offices with even greater focus on helping Chinese and European users." According to him, the main aims of the cooperation will be to improve operational effectiveness, improve access to the IP system and jointly build a highly-efficient and interoperable IP system. (by Sun Di/photo by Jiang Wenjie)