Annual bilateral meeting of EPO and CNIPA heads

On 25 November,
EPO President António Campinos and CNIPA (China National Intellectual Property
Administration) Commissioner Shen Changyu held their annual bilateral meeting
online, where they spoke about recent activities at both offices, discussed future
bilateral cooperation, and reviewed the progress of the cooperation annual work
plan, which came into force in 2022.

The Heads of
Office shared the recent developments at the respective Offices. President
Campinos emphasised the importance of the upcoming introduction of the Unitary
Patent and the opportunities which this development will bring to foster
innovation in Europe.

Reflecting on
the achievements of the bilateral cooperation throughout 2022, the two heads
agreed to renew the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on CPC (Cooperative Patent Classification), thus
continuing the strong cooperation between the two strategic partners. In
addition to this, one particular activity of the 2022 annual work plan, the EPO-CNIPA pilot on International Searching Authority
(ISA) files, was discussed at length.

The pilot,
which started in 2020, enables nationals and residents of the People’s Republic
of China to select the EPO as their ISA when filing international patent
applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). In September 2022 the
two Offices published a joint communique announcing the extension of the pilot
for one additional year until 30 November 2023. Both President Campinos and
Commissioner Shen Changyu agreed that the project itself has been quite
successful and agreed to continue working together to further increase the
attractiveness of the pilot for the applicants.

Commissioner
Shen updated the President on the 2022 patent filing statistics at CNIPA with
approximately 1,34m patent applications filed until October. He reiterated the
commitment of CNIPA in the CPC classification scheme and the importance he
attaches to patent data exchange with the EPO. Artificial intelligence is one
of the top priorities for CNIPA and the two Offices should work closely together
in this field.

President
Campinos and Commissioner Shen concluded the meeting by signing the new CPC
MoU, the annual work plan for 2023 as well as the agreement to extend CNIPA’s
use of EPOQUE Net by one additional year.