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17 November 2014Asia

EPO and SIPO in partnership meeting

The heads of the European Patent Office (EPO) and China’s IP office have pledged to work together to improve innovation and future partnerships.

Sheng Changyu, commissioner at the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) in China, met EPO president Benoît Battistelli at a meeting in Brussels last week.

During the meeting, announced on the EPO’s website, future joint activities were discussed as well as details about how both offices are attempting to align their patent systems to support growth in both regions.

According to the  IPKat Blog, Changyu said that SIPO’s next priority is to improve patent quality and to promote commercialisation.

The EPO said recent developments, including the addition of one million Chinese documents to the EPO's translation tool Patent Translate, and SIPO's decision to adopt the Cooperative Patent Classification as its internal classification scheme, were “significantly improving access” to Chinese patent data at the EPO.

During the meeting, the EPO’s Battistelli also indicated that the office hoped to able to announce fees for the much anticipated unitary patent by June 2015, according to the IPKat.

The meeting came as the two offices prepare to celebrate the upcoming 30th anniversary of their co-operation, which first started in 1985.

"As a result of our close co-operation, the Chinese and European patent systems have much in common today, and our partnership has become a pillar of efforts to harmonise patent systems around the world," said Battistelli.