Thank you, Mr. President.

At the outset, I wish to extend, on behalf of the Chinese delegation, congratulations to you on your election as the president of this General Assembly. I also wish to congratulate the two vice presidents on their election. I am confident that, under your able leadership, this General Assembly will deliver its expected results. The Chinese delegation would like to thank the Director General and the Secretariat for their hard work, particularly the preparation of such an extensive and comprehensive collection of documents for this meeting.

Mr. President,

Today is the National Day of China. It is truly an honor for me and my colleagues to celebrate this joyous festival in such a special way together with the delegates of WIPO member states here in Geneva. Please allow me to take this opportunity to give you a briefing about the progress of intellectual property development in China over the past year.

The implementation of the national intellectual property strategy, which was promulgated in China four years ago, has produced visible results. China's capability to create, use, protect and manage intellectual property is constantly improving. In 2011, the Chinese government published the Outline of the 12th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, which, for the first time, included specific targets on patent. The 12th Five-Year Plan for Intellectual Property Development issued by the State Intellectual Property Office together with eight other departments of the Chinese government further specified the targets of the intellectual property strategy to be achieved before 2015.

In order to keep up with the rapid progress of patent development in China, we have recently launched a new round of amendment of the Patent Law. Meanwhile, the amendment of the Trademark Law and Copyright Law is also in progress.

In the first eight months of this year, we have received over 363,000 patent applications, including 287,000 domestic applications, up by 24.1% year-on-year, and 12,117 PCT applications, up by 13.5%. In 2011, 17,473 PCT applications were filed by Chinese nationals, 35.3% higher than the previous year. On trademark registration, we have handled 824,000 applications and reviewed 588,000 applications in the first half of 2012, up by 24.4% and 7.3% respectively. On the use of legal software products, as of the end of June 2012, Chinese government departments at both central and local levels had purchased 2.19 million software copies (licenses) worth over 1.5 billion RMB yuan in the three most commonly used software categories, including over 1.32 million copies of office software with a total value of more than 970 million RMB yuan.

As one of the most dynamic and important players in the IP field, China reaffirms its request for establishment of an external office by the WIPO in China. If the WIPO Secretariat takes an affirmative decision in this regard, China would provide the premise and related expenditure hereby incurred.

In the past year, with the personal commitment of Director General Francis Gurry, China has sustained and deepened its cooperation with WIPO. In June this year, the Diplomatic Conference on the Protection of Audiovisual Performances was successfully held in Beijing. The representatives of 154 WIPO member states and 49 international organizations attended the conference and signed the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances to ensure full protection of performer's rights. The conference is not only a major diplomatic event in the international copyright community, but also of important significance for the improvement of China's copyright protection regime. This delegation would like to appeal to member states to expedite the process of ratification and accession to the treaty, so that the treaty could enter into force early.

Here, I wish to share with you a few observations on the following WIPO-related issues:

First, we need to further improve the three WIPO-administered international application and registration systems. China has been a member of the Madrid System and the PCT System for a long time, and we are now favorably considering joining the Hague System as well. China is a big country in industrial designs and represents over half of the world's applications in this field. However, the fact that there are only three working languages of the Hague System, i.e. English, French and Spanish, weakens the effect of its dissemination and application. We hope that WIPO will work to expand the linguistic scope of the Hague System in a way that is compatible with the existing language policy of the organization.

Second, we need to continue to support the work of the Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC).

Third, we hope that WIPO will provide adequate financial and human resources support for the implementation of the agreed proposals under the development agenda so as to bring real benefits to developing countries, the least developed countries in particular.

Mr. President, Before concluding my statement, I want to reassure you that as a responsible developing country, China will continue to support the work of the General Assembly conducted under your leadership and the work of other WIPO committees, and take an active part in the discussions on the agenda. In the meantime, China stands ready to enhance cooperation, share opportunities and tackle challenges together with other WIPO member states with an open and inclusive attitude, and contribute to the improvement of the international intellectual property regime and the common prosperity and development of all countries in the world.

Thank you.

 

(China IP News)

2012-10-18

2012-10-18