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Twenty years' co-operation between the European Patent Office and the Chinese Patent Office

EPO international projects focus on Asia

Munich, 5 December 2005 - The European Patent Office and the Chinese Patent Office today marked the twentieth anniversary of their co-operation at a ceremony in Beijing. Tian Lipu, Commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), and Alain Pompidou, President of the European Patent Office (EPO), looked back on two decades of fruitful collaboration: what began in the seventies with the visit of the first EPO President Johannes Bob van Benthem to Beijing and developed into formal co-operation in 1985 has since become a close partnership. Once a year, the heads of the two Offices sign a Memorandum of Understanding setting out their agreed goals. This makes China one of the EPO's most important partners outside Europe: "Working closely with newly industrialising countries, especially China, is a cornerstone of the EPO's co-operation policy", according to Professor Pompidou.

Jump in the number of patent applications in China

The strong growth of the Chinese patent system is also reflected in the filing figures, with Beijing reporting more than 130 000 patent applications last year. Over half originated in China itself, a clear sign that the country is becoming more of an innovator, whilst about 64 000 applications came from foreign firms. Being an increasingly important market for European industry, China is now among the countries covered by the EPO's Eastern Asia patent information service. This helps European companies to use Chinese databases and makes technical know-how from China, Japan and Korea available to European industry and science.

Patent protection - a force behind international integration

The EPO's international co-operation projects focus on Asia. Their aim is to build up strong national patent systems in the various states and regions, and to harmonise them with international standards on intellectual property. However, the significance of these efforts goes far beyond modernising the patent protection system: the successful implementation of the EU-China Intellectual Property Rights Co-operation Programme helped pave the way for China's accession to the World Trade Organization. This European Commission programme with a budget of EUR 5.5m was implemented by the EPO between 1996 and 2004. As well as updating and expanding the Chinese patent system, numerous training courses were provided under the programme for patent attorneys, patent judges, customs authorities and universities. The adoption by the Chinese Patent Office of EPOQUE, a suite of applications used by the EPO for patent searches, was a milestone in the Offices' joint history, giving SIPO patent examiners access to the EPO's collection of over 60 million patent specifications. This plays, and will continue to play, an important role in assuring quality in the grant procedure.

Co-operation with other Asian states

The European Patent Office's relations with Japan go back even further to 1983 and the beginnings of Trilateral co-operation with the Japanese Patent Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In view of Japan's economic significance, the EPO set up its patent information service for Eastern Asia in 1991. It has also worked in co-operation with Korea and the patent offices of the ASEAN states for many years. Acting on behalf of the European Commission, the EPO runs a project office in Bangkok to implement the EU's intellectual property programme in the ASEAN states (ECAP II).

For further information please contact:

European Patent Office
Press Desk
80298 Munich
Telephone: +4989/2399-1823/-1824
press@epo.org