The municipal government of Wuhan issued a document recently for establishing a IPR Leading Group in Wuhan with 35 member units. The group, headed by Mr. Yuan Shanla, the Executive Vice Mayor, replaces the formal leading group and a joint working committee of Wuhan government. The office of this group is in the Wuhan Municipal IP Administration with Mr. Dong Hongwei, director of the administration, as its head. The office’s secretariat is responsible for the daily work..

The members of the leading group are from the related departments, such as government, Wuhan Municipal People’s Congress, People's Political Consultative Conference, intermediate court, municipal procurator and Wuhan Customs. The group mainly takes charge of making decisions on the IP issues, formulating IPR regulations in Wuhan and coordinating the IPR management and protection.

It is learnt that in the early of 2006, a leading IP group was established in Wuhan with the demand of Hubei provincial government, which consisted of 19 member units in accordance with the office in central and provincial governments.

Past years have witnessed the achievement made by the former IP leading group and the joint meeting. However, when the two systems operated, the function of each system somehow overlapped or interacted. In addition, there were some departments, such as Wuhan Arbitration Committee, were out of the systems.

The new leading group, with more extensive members, thus has stronger administration capacity and a completed coordinative system.

2007-11-26

2007-11-26