A delegation of the Legislative Affairs Office of the National People’s Congress (LAC) carried out a study visit to Europe (Ireland and Denmark) from the 2nd to the 8th July, organised by IP Key.

The members of the LAC delegation met EU experts from the relevant ministries, judiciary, IP practitioners and industry to share views and learn from best practices on several issues in the current agenda of reforms for the Chinese Patent Law.

IP Key and SAIC organised two full day seminars on the Community Trademarks system y in cooperation with Liaoning and Heilongjiang AIC, addressed to Chinese business community, public officers and trademark attorneys.

Each of these seminars had 70-80 attendees among Chinese businesses, IP lawyers, IP consultants, government officials.

These events, respectively in Shenyang on September 25 and in Harbin on September 27, also allowed additional discussions on TM best practices with SAIC experts and enhanced international cooperation with local AIC on TM matters.

On 23-24 September, the Chinese Ministry of Culture will hold its 2nd nation-wide Online Cultural Market Enforcement Training in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. The Ministry has invited IP Key to contribute to this training introducing online copyright enforcement trends in the EU and sharing best practices of case investigation and evidence collection during a one day training session.

Background

In close cooperation and consultation with one another, experts from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) and OHIM are jointly undertaking a technical feasibility study examining the potential integration of SAIC's trademark data into TMview.

The integration of design data from the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) into OHIM's Designview database is being carried out as part of the IP Key Yearly Action Plan for 2014.

IP Key conducted a training session to members of the press to inform them on new trends and challenges in developing and enforcing the copyright law in todays digital world where technology is often moving much faster than the law.

Building on the outcome of the study visits conducted earlier in May (see relevant summary report for additional information), IP Key and the Legislative Affairs Commission at the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (LAC) held a follow up experts’ roundtable at the Conference Center of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, to address – mainly from an academic perspective - a range of copyright-related topics relevant for the current legislative reform.

IP Key invited academics from UK and Germany as well as DG Trade to join as key speakers for this purpose.

IP Key’s Yearly Action Plan (YAP) for 2014 was endorsed by its respective management boards.

Benoît Misonne and Dan Prud'homme write in the Journal of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China (Eurobiz) that European businesses should keep up with China’s changing IP landscape in 2014 and discuss how IP Key can help.

Dan Prud'homme of the IP Key Team is quoted in Managing Intellectual Property (MIP)'s January 24th 2014 article entitled "SIPO issues guidance on FRAND commitments in national standards".