The 6th Meeting of China-ASEAN Heads of Intellectual Property Offices was held in Beijing on July 27. Shen Changyu, Commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) and Tan Yih San, Chair of the ASEAN Working Group on Intellectual Property Cooperation (AWGIPC) attended and addressed the meeting. Heads and senior officials of ASEAN IP offices also attended the meeting. Shen Changyu said in recent years, SIPO and ASEAN IP offices have carried out fruitful cooperation in personnel training, patent examination, information construction and traditional knowledge protection through joint efforts. He hoped both sides work together to create new prospect for China-ASEAN IP cooperation, steer the international IP rules in a mutually beneficial and inclusive direction, and provide strong support to facilitate their technology innovation and economic and social development.

Shen Changyu said that China and ASEAN countries have a long history of friendly relations. Since the establishment of full dialogue relation, the relation between China and ASEAN countries have developed from full dialogue partnership and good-neighborly partnership of mutual trust to strategic partnership of extensive common interests. In the future, China and ASEAN countries will join hands to build a closer China-ASEAN community of destiny with the advance of "One Belt, One Road" initiative.

Shen Changyu stressed that 2015 is a very important year for IP work of China and ASEAN. This year is the first year for China to implement the Action Plan for National Intellectual Property Strategy. This plan clearly put forward a new goal of building IP power and a series of new initiatives concerning IP use, protection, management and other key aspects. He said that China's goal of IP strategy action plan is consistent with that of ASEAN, which is making IP play an important role in promoting scientific and technological progress and economic development. He hoped that the two sides strengthen communication, exchange experience, learn from each other and achieve common progress during the implementation of respective action plan.

Tan Yih San said that ASEAN has formulated 2016-2025 IP strategy action plan which consists of four main strategic goals. It plans to improve efficiency and quality of IP examination for all ASEAN countries, strengthen IP service capabilities, promote IP protection and use, and expand IP ecosystem. He hoped that both sides will further strengthen cooperation and promote bilateral economic development under the framework of this action plan.

The meeting heard the report on implementation of 2014-2015 annual China-ASEAN IP cooperation work plan and approved the Work Plan for 2015-2016 China-ASEAN Intellectual Property Cooperation. In accordance with the new work plan, both sides will continue to strengthen cooperation in personnel training, traditional medicine data base building, establishment of examination work sharing system, IP valuation and communication with IP users.

China and ASEAN signed memorandum of understanding (MOU) on intellectual property cooperation in 2009. The two sides take turns to hold Meeting of China-ASEAN Heads of Intellectual Property Offices every year.

2015-08-17

2015-08-17