China Daily:

At the opening ceremony of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, President Xi Jinping emphasized the need to deepen reform in areas including intellectual property to support high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. My question is, what progress has been made in intellectual property cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in recent years, and what are the next steps? Thank you.

Shen Changyu:

Thank you for your question. I will answer this. Since President Xi Jinping proposed the BRI, the CNIPA has established and continuously improved the intellectual property cooperation mechanism under the initiative. We have held two Belt and Road high-level conferences on intellectual property and made solid progress in cooperation with participating countries.

First, our partnerships have expanded. We signed an intergovernmental agreement with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to strengthen intellectual property cooperation under the BRI. We established Funds-In-Trust China to provide technical assistance to developing countries, including those participating in the BRI. We have actively advanced intellectual property cooperation within minilateral frameworks such as BRICS, China-ASEAN, China-Central Asia, China-Mongolia-Russia, and China-Africa. To date, we have signed agreements and established bilateral cooperation mechanisms with 57 BRI participating countries regarding intellectual property cooperation.

Second, cooperation projects have yielded fruitful results. We have actively promoted exchanges and cooperation with partner countries in the areas of intellectual property policy communication, personnel training, degree education, examination services, and protection and utilization. We have organized more than 50 training sessions for partner countries, training more than 1,200 intellectual property officials and practitioners. We have developed intellectual property degree education programs under the BRI, enrolling over 230 students. We have also dispatched 29 experts in total to support intellectual property capacity building in partner countries.

Thanks to Belt and Road intellectual property cooperation, Chinese enterprises have expanded their development opportunities. Chinese invention patents now receive direct registration and recognition in Cambodia, while Laos accepts China's patent examination results. We have also established Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) agreements with 17 BRI partners, including Russia, Singapore, Poland, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The China-Thailand geographical indication mutual recognition and protection project is progressing steadily. Between 2013 and 2023, the number of patents granted to Chinese entities in BRI participating countries increased by an average of 20% annually. This growth was particularly strong in core digital and green low-carbon technologies, strongly supporting digital transformation and green development across BRI participating countries.

Moving forward, the CNIPA will thoroughly implement the key principles from President Xi Jinping's important speech at the opening ceremony of the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. In September of this year, we, along with the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee (National Copyright Administration), the Ministry of Commerce, the Beijing Municipal Government, and WIPO, will host the Third Belt and Road High-Level Conference on Intellectual Property. The conference will include representatives from over 60 Belt and Road partner countries, regions, and international organizations. It aims to achieve greater scale, higher quality, stronger results, and broader impact. We will advance a series of pragmatic cooperation projects across four areas: patents, trademarks, geographical indications, and copyright. This will elevate Belt and Road intellectual property cooperation to a new level, better support the high-quality development of the BRI, and contribute to the country's high-level openingup. Thank you.