Recently, the 2nd UK-China Intellectual Property Symposium, co-organized by the SIPO and the UK Intellectual Property Office, was held in Beijing. SIPO Commissioner Shen Changyu and Baroness Neville-Rolfe, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills of Britain (BIS), attended the opening ceremony and delivered remarks. Mr. Shen said that as two major economies in the world, China and the UK shared broad-based common interests and could work together on such a promising field as intellectual property. He said that he hoped the two countries could continue to strengthen their exchange of ideas and expand their areas of cooperation, which would help to inject new dynamism into their bilateral relationship.

Mr. Shen pointed out that the Chinese government took intellectual property protection seriously, worked hard to create a favorable environment for intellectual property, tried to fully leverage the important role of intellectual property in driving innovation and economic growth, and focused on developing intellectual property-intensive industries as a way to restructure and upgrade the economy. He said that, as the Sino-UK relationship evolved, the two countries' cooperation on intellectual property had been fruitful in recent years and was already an important component of the bilateral cooperation framework, promoting the growth of economic and trade ties as well as scientific and cultural exchange between China and the UK. He said that he believed the China-UK Patent Prosecution Highway project, which was put into trial operation in July, would provide high quality and convenient patent examination services and further facilitate the patent users and business communities in both countries.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe said that China and the UK were benefiting from the ever-growing trade, investment and innovation between the two countries. She pointed out that intellectual property would be a promising area of cooperation for China and the UK, and that a good example of such cooperation was the 2nd UK-China Intellectual Property Symposium. She said that she hoped the two countries would take that opportunity to enhance their cooperation and exchange of ideas so that they could made progress in intellectual property at a higher level.

The meeting discussed five major issues: the intellectual property economy and government services, intellectual property in research and technology commercialization, patents and designs, trademarks, and enforcement. More than 200 people, including government officials, intellectual property experts, industrial associations, and representatives of universities, attended the symposium.

Before the meeting, Mr. Shen met with Baroness Neville-Rolfe. He said that the SIPO would like to further cooperate and exchange ideas with BIS, especially the UK Intellectual Property Office, so that the two sides could better serve the business communities and intellectual property users in the two countries. Baroness Neville-Rolfe spoke highly of the progress China had made in intellectual property in recent years. She said that she hoped the two sides would work more on intellectual property and technology.

By the end of 2013, China had received 24,565 invention patent applications from the UK and granted 10,243 invention patents to British applicants. At the end of 2013, there were 6,412 valid invention patents in China that were held by British applicants.

2014-10-23

2014-10-23