On September 1st, Beijing welcomed its first rain since autumn came. On that day, a guest came from UK attended the 2nd China-UK IP Symposium held by SIPO and UKIPO in Beijing. This is not her first visit to China, but it is easy to feel the importance that she attaches to the IP cooperation and exchange between the two countries. She is British Business, Innovation and Skill  Minister Neville Rolfe.

Before her visit to China, she wrote an article named The Lure of IP on her blog. "One of my tasks is to develop international partnership between UK and other countries. I would made my first trip aboard to China to implement the cooperation agreement reached by Prime Minister Cameron and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang in December last year. We would jointly hold a symposium on IP to help companies of both two countries better understand how IP system works." Rolfe said in her blog.

For the importance of IP cooperation between two countries, Rolfe held that UK has a strong creative industry, which contributes 6% to employment and 10% to export. In parallel, China has been increasingly relying on innovation, trademark and copyright protection. In her opinion, China has over 1.2 billion consumers, which is more attractive and important to EU members such as UK."And on this basis, we hold symposium to exchange ideas and improve IP enforcement, protection and respect creativity and innovation." Said Rolfe.

She holds that, China and the Britain will benefit from the increasing trade, investment and innovation between both. They have a lot of  space in IP cooperation, and The 2nd UK-China Intellectual Property Symposium is a good start. She hopes , through the symposium, both countries can take jointly effort to promote the IP cooperation and communication.

(China IP News)