Source: China IP News

"In the past 2017, IP is a core part of China-EU trade, and also plays a vital role in the continuous development of trade between two sides. In recent years, China has been maintaining a strong growth in receiving patent and trademark applications, and the raising of its IP creation and service is impressive," said European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) Deputy Executive Director Christian Archambeau. He spoke warmly of the achievements made by China in IP in recent years during an interview by our reporter in China on January 17.

"EUIPO is a decentralized agency of the EU, and manage the registration of European Union trademark and the Registered Community Design, formulation and implementation of EU IP strategy, exchanging and training of IP enforcement and running of EU IP infringement inspector. Besides, EUIPO also cooperates with the national and regional IP offices in the EU to provide services across those countries. Enhancing IPR protection environment is one of the major tasks of EUIPO. It bolsters cooperation with EU member states and countries outside EU to crack down upon on IP infringement and counterfeit by beefing up IP popularization, education and monitoring. In parallel, EUIPO joined hands with countries outside EU like China in IPR protection," Archambeau said.

Archambeau highly appraised the progresses that China has made in IPR protection. "In recent years, China has taken a series of effective measures to protect IPRs and some companies like Tencent, Jingdong and Alibaba also participated in this event," said Archambeau, "China has become EU's largest of source of imports and second largest exporter with trade volume exceeding one billion euros every day. As China continues to strengthen IPR protection environment, the cooperation between the two sides has provided a strong support for economic development of China and EU."

Since as early as 1996, the two sides have successfully collaborated in EU-China Projects on IPR Protection:  IPR1 with a focus on legislation and IPR2 on enforcement. Archambeau highlighted the coming project jointly conducted by China and EUIPO. In a bid to establish a cooperation platform between the two partners, the IP Key China will create a transparent and fair international IP environment for companies of two sides. Such project will promote the unification of legislative and enforcement standard of IPR protection. In terms of serving companies, the project will provide IP information for the companies of two sides and facilitate the sharing of innovation tools, database, IP registration and enforcement system. Currently, the TMview and Designview developed by EUIPO have covered all the different EU countries. So they provide a quick and easy way for Chinese IP users to search information and file design and trademark registration application online.

 "Throughout the years, we have seen China's knowledge of IPR protection and related laws, regulations and systems continue to update, so EUIPO is willing to further bolster cooperation between two sides. That is a good way to build a sound international IPR protection environment," Archambeau added.