Infringements of IPR and, particularly, counterfeiting and piracy, are a ceaselessly growing phenomenon, which nowadays has an international dimension, representing a serious threat to national economies that appears to be more and more linked to transnational organized crime.

Counterfeiting is still wrongly considered by public opinion as a “victim-less” crime, while the impact of IPR infringements on legal economy and the role of international organized criminal organizations is widely underestimated also by policy makers, not only in China.

IP Key and the National Copyright Administration of China (NC AC) are organising a roundtable on collective rights management on 26 and 27 November 2014 in Beijing.  The two-day meeting will gather 70 participants from China and Europe to discuss factors shaping the development of collective right management (in particular in relation to the digital era) and address challenges confronting the Chinese CMOs.

Ms Carmen Cano, Deputy Head of the European Delegation to China, Mr Zhang Xiangchen, Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, and Mr António Campinos, President of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), today launched the New EU-China Cooperation on Intellectual Property.

Meeting with EU Industry and IP attachés from EU Member States

On the occasion of the Official Launch of the New EU-China Activity-Based Cooperation in Intellectual Property in Beijing on 16 January 2014, IP Key convened a meeting with representatives of European industry and European Union Member States with the participation of Mr. António Campinos, President of the European Union Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), implementing agency of the IP Key.

IP Key and SIPO jointly organised a series of three seminars in China on the Registered Community Design (RCD), held in Haikou (Hainan), Changsha (Hunan), and Chengdu (Sichuan) in April 2014.

IP Key conducted a one day round table on intensified IP enforcement systems that may exist at a local level in the EU and China. The roundtable was organised in partnership with MOFCOM, under the effigy of the the New EU-China IP Cooperation in cooperation with the the Sino-German Ecopark and the Qingdao Arbitration Commission on the 5th September 2014.

Overview

IP Key recently organized a “Trademark Best Practice Seminar” in cooperation with SAIC. The meeting took place at SAIC’s Guesthouse facilities in Beijing.

About 30,  Chinese official and examiners from several different departments of SAIC/CTMO (International Registrations, GI, Application, Legal and International Affairs, IT, TRAB), succesfully engaged their EU peers in in-depth discussions covering a set of trademark related topics jointly identified by IP Key and SAIC over the course of 2 months.

IP Key held the Inter-EU Industry Association Roundtable for Finalising Comments on the Draft Implementing Regulations to the Chinese Trademark Law on January 27, 2014, at the Delegation of the European Union to China and Mongolia (EU Delegation) in Beijing, China.

On very short notice - due to the tight national legislative agenda - IP Key held an experts' workshop on "Drafting Comments to New TRAB Rules" on March 3, 2014, hosted at the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC) in Beijing, China.

IP Key and the State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) are engaged in a long-term series of activities to improve understanding about the workings of the utility model systems in China and in various EU Member States.