A chief meeting was held in Beijing between He Hua, Deputy Commissioner of China's State Intellectual Property Office, and John Alty, CEO of the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO).

The two parties communicated on the latest development in each office, reviewed their progresses in the bilateral cooperation and exchanged opinions on significant evolutions of the international IPR regime and other topics the both parties concern.

He Hua highly appraised the long-lasting cooperation between the two offices. According to him, SIPO greatly values the relationship with UKIPO and their bilateral cooperation is expected to cover other sectors besides the current collaboration in personnel training, exchange of examiners, studies on search results and development of R&D-related IPR agreements.

He also introduced the latest achievement in patent applications in China. According to the data released, the patent applications and grants both increased rapidly in 2010. Patent applications for inventions were 391,000 with a year-on-year increase of 24.1%; PCT applications were 12,337, up 56.2% from 2009. He also shared with Mr. Alty SIPO's strategy in the twelfth five-year plan period and the progress of the ongoing special campaign on cracking down upon IPR infringement and manufacture and sales of fake and shoddy commodities.

UKIPO has attached more importance to the cooperation with SIPO in today's knowledge-driven society, said Mr. Alty, and the office will further reinforce the connection with its Chinese counterparts.

Mr. Alty spoke highly of the rapid growth in China's IPR industry and suggested the two offices strengthen the communications on issues they both need to tackle, such as how to deal with the rapid increase in patent applications and how to provide better IPR-related services to enterprises and the public.

Source:IPR in China