China, Europe Celebrate 30 Years of Cooperation in Intellectual Property

China's State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) and the European Patent Office (EPO) celebrated their 30 years of bilateral cooperation, a strategic partnership that made great achievements in innovating businesses in both regions and had a profound impact on worldwide patent system building.


At a symposium held on Oct. 10th in Lyon (France) in which more than 140 high-level Chinese and European experts from government, industry, academia and patent profession have attended, SIPO and EPO reviewed the achievements of their three decades of collaboration in areas such as staff training and exchanges, the improvement of related laws and regulations, the sharing of data and expertise, as well as the harmonization of tools and procedures.


China and Europe established cooperation in intellectual property (IP) in 1985 by signing the first bilateral agreement. In 2007, SIPO and EPO stepped into strategic partnership, which upgraded their cooperation from a purely technical to a strategic level.


Shen Changyu, Commissioner of SIPO, in his opening address at the symposium expressed his appreciation of the EPO's contribution in the development of China's IP system.


EPO President Benoit Battistelli said that China has become a global leading player in the field and its national patent system is among the most modern and efficient ones in the world .


With the constant improvement of China's IP system in legislation, regulation and law enforcement, and the fact that Chinese and European patent systems have more and more characteristics in common, the number of patent filing presented by inventors or companies from one side to the other has been on rapid rise.


From 2005 to 2014, the volume of Chinese patent filings received by EPO has increased tenfold. In 2014, in the EPO's 274,174 patent filings, those from China reached 26,462, accounting for about 9 percent of total. Meanwhile, among 928,000 patent filings received by SIPO in 2014, 127,000 are from foreign applicants, where applications from the 38 member states of EPO accounted for 28 percent.


"The top three areas where China presented the most patent application to the EPO were digital communication, computer technology and telecommunications," said Battistelli, saying that this result fully reflect the strength of Chinese economy which has reached a global leading level in the field of ICT and innovation.