Representatives attending the 21^st Meeting of IP5 Deputy Heads of Office. Second from left is CNIPA Deputy Commissioner Gan Shaoning

The 21^st Meeting of IP5 Deputy Heads of Office was held in Seoul, South Korea from April 10 to 11. Deputy Commissioner Gan Shaoning of China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), Vice-President Christoph Ernst of European Patent Office (EPO), Technology Supervisor Kunihiko Siman of Japan Patent Office (JPO) and Deputy Commissioner for International Patent Cooperation Mark Powell of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) headed delegations respectively to present at the meeting. Vice Commissioner Cheon Se-chang of Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) chaired the meeting. Deputy Director General John Sandage of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) attended the meeting as an observer.

Meetings of IP5 Deputy Heads of Office are middle and high level institutional meetings of IP5; the 21^st meeting is held by KIPO, the rotating office. During the meeting, deputy heads of the five offices listened to the report of working groups on progresses and achievements in the past year, discussed on major issues including strengthening of IP5 emerging technology cooperation, further improvement of IP5 cooperation mechanism, selection of strategic issues of IP5, following works of the Patent Harmonisation Experts Panel (PHEP) and standards-essential patents, and conducted a preliminary review of the draft of IP5 joint statement which will be submitted to the Meeting of IP5 Heads of Office in June. Lastly, the meeting approved achievements agreed upon by working groups to submit to the Meeting of IP5 Heads of Office in June for authorization.Before the meeting, Gan Shaoning had a bilateral talk with EPO Vice-President Christoph Ernst. Gan Shaoning briefed on the situation of the institutional reform of CNIPA on request by EPO, and Christoph Ernst introduced to CNIPA the progress of the multi-year strategic planning that EPO is formulating. The two parties especially exchanged views and reached several agreements on issues of cooperative patent classification, automatic system for retrieval and examination and IP5 cooperation. During the meeting, members of delegations also attended relevant activities such as a temporary PHEP meeting and the PMT meeting of IP5. (Translated from CNIPA Website Chinese Version)