Policies and Regulations

Chapter 12 International Exchanges and Cooperation

Updated: 2010-04-22 10:12

Mr. Herman, Director of WIPO’s Africa Bureau, led a delegation of senior officials and senior examiners from 26 African countries to CTMO and visited the exhibition accompanied by Director General Li Jianchang. The African visitors gave high praise to the registration and protection of China’s agricultural product trademarks and geographical indications, especially their benefit to agriculture improvement, wishing to take China’s experience back to their own countries. They expected further communication between China and Africa to explore how to better protect trademarks for agricultural products and geographical indications, so that African countries could benefit more from China’s experience.

December 17 and 18,2009, Mr. Juan Barraza, Senior Director of International Registration Department, Sector of Trademark, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications, WIPO, of visited CTMO, and held a discussion with Director General Li Jianchang about electronic communication with the Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks.

1-2. Exchanges and cooperation with WTO.

In 2009, CTMO attached big importance to the issues concerning China from the WTO submitted by EU, United States and Japan, and attended WTO’s TRIPS Council session and special session, negotiating IP issues such as extension of geographical indication protection and actively safeguarding China’s interests.

1-3. Exchanges and cooperation with APEC.

In 2009, CTMO had its staff attend the 28th and 29th sessions of the APEC IP Expert Group, and actively responded to the proposals from these meetings.

1-4. Joined in the Trilateral Trademark

Cooperation Meeting among United States, Japan and Europe.

Li Jianchang, Director-General of the Trademark Office, joined in the 8th trilateral meeting in Alicante, Spain, in December 2009, where ideas were exchanged on such topics as trademark quality monitoring and IT development. Bilateral cooperation discussions were also held.

2. Bilateral exchanges and cooperation.

China maintained active bilateral exchanges in the trademark field in 2009, signing MOUs with more countries, while cooperation projects with relevant countries and regions were successfully completed, further enhancing bilateral relations.

The year witnessed signing of MOUs on trademarks between SAIC and EU, Korea, France and Vietnam, symbolizing the establishment of a formal bilateral strategic cooperation framework between China and those countries, with bilateral relations and cooperation entering a new stage, regular and standardized.

The China-EU IPR Protection Project II was successful carried out. Wubbo de Boer, President of the Office for Harmonization of the Internal Market (OHIM), visited SAIC concerning issues of bilateral cooperation and other matters. The Comparative Study on Trademark Registration under the project was smoothly finished. The OHIM delegation, as a part of the project, also made an on-the-spot investigation of CTMO trademark registration procedures. After this, tour seminars on European Community Trademark and Three-dimensional Trademark System were jointly held in China.

2009 was also a busy year for CTMO in professional exchanges with other countries, such as official visits to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Thailand Department of Intellectual Property, lecturing about China’s trademark law at EU headquarters, and attending negotiations or workshops in Norway, Russia, Thailand, Korea, Mongolia, Italy and elsewhere. Meanwhile, CTMO had hosted visiting IP delegations or foreign enterprise representatives from Korea, Japan, Cuba, Vietnam, the United States, Thailand, the Philippines, and so on, to exchange ideas on the trademark legal system, administrative enforcement, geographical indication protection and individual trademark cases.

In 2009, CTMO had its staff take part in the Geographical Indication Training Program held by the “Global IP Institute” run by USPTO, the APEC IP Information Training Program jointly held by the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) and APEC, as well as the AOTS training hosted by the Japan Patent Office (JPO). In addition, two CTMO examiners went to OHIM for a five-month internship.