China-Europe cooperation over 30 years

1985

The Chinese Patent Office, predecessor of the State Intellectual Property Office, and the European Patent Office sign a framework cooperation agreement on June 11 in Munich, establishing a formal bilateral cooperative relationship. The two offices set up a joint committee.

1993

The European and the Chinese patent offices initiate a cooperation program, partly financed by the EU, with the EPO as the implementing agency. An international symposium is held in Beijing to promote the economic and trade relationship between China and European Community member states on the basis of enhancement of their intellectual property system. About 200 experts from China and Europe participated in the three-day symposium.

1997

CPO and EPO sign the Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Patent Documentation for Purposes of Search and Related Automation System in February, aiming to build an in-house search system in CPO.

2001

Symposia are held in Munich, Rome and London to introduce the revised Chinese Patent Law that took effect in July.

2002

From July 1 through 5, the SIPO and EPO organize a joint training seminar at the China Intellectual Property Center for patent examiners. About 70 examiners from China and overseas participate.

2005

At an event to mark the 20th anniversary of bilateral cooperation on Dec 5, the two sides agree to upgrade their relationship from technical cooperation to a strategic partnership.

2007

SIPO and EPO sign the Agreement on a Strategic Partnership on June 29, which foresees consultations and annual cooperation activities in human resources, offices' operations, global issues, transparency of the procedure and IPawareness.

2011

SIPO and EPO sign an agreement at their annual bilateral cooperation meeting in Chongqing on Nov 29, to eliminate linguistic barriers in public access to patent information.

2013

SIPO signs the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperative Patent Classification with EPO to use it as its internal classification scheme.

2014

On June 4, SIPO Commissioner Shen Changyu and EPO President Benoit Battistelli sign the Agreement on Global Dossier, launching the Global Dossier service that allows access to Chinese and European dossier content for a family of patent applications.

2015

The two offices jointly hold international symposia in Lyon and Beijing to mark the 30th anniversary of their cooperation. The ninth heads meeting is held on Nov 27, during which the Bilateral Work Plan for 2016 is signed.