On September 21 local time, the 12th Conference of Heads of Offices between National Intellectual Property Administration of China (CNIPA) and the European Patent Office (EPO) was held in Munich.

　　Shen Changyu, Head of CNIPA and António Campinos, President of EPO attended the meeting. Shen first congratulated on the appointment of António Campinos as the new president of EPO and hoped to make concerted efforts with EPO to further explore the new dimension of cooperation. Then Shen briefed the European side the work updates of China’s IP work and institutional reform and reviewed the progress made by both offices in the cooperation projects in 2018.

　　He indicated that the bilateral projects go smoothly this year and according to the work plan, the projects of various business have achieved results as expected. He stressed that the 33-year cooperation between CNIPA and EPO have scored fruitful achievements, thus making positive contribution to the development of IP system in China, Europe and the world at large.

　　In 2017, the two sides upgraded the previous strategic partnership to the comprehensive strategic partnership, which ushered in a new course of cooperation. CNIPA is ready to work with EPO on advancing the revolution and progress in the global patent system, providing better service for IP users and the general public and jointly promoting the prosperous economic development of China and Europe.

　　Campinos said that the Chinese patent applications and grants at EPO continue to grow, which reflects the huge vigor of innovation in China and the remarkable achievements in the China-EU cooperation. He also looked back the bilateral work in data exchange and personnel training as well as the cooperation under the framework of IP5 offices. And, he highly commended the still high-quality implementation of cooperation projects by CNIPA during its reorganization. He hoped to see wider, deeper and higher-level cooperation between two administrations under the comprehensive strategic partnership in the future so as to jointly meet up the new challenges faced by the IP system and better promote the communication and cooperation between China and EU in the economic, innovation and technical fields.

　　At the meeting, both sides signed the 2019 Work Plan on Bilateral Cooperation between CNIPA and EPO and had in-depth discussion, focusing on the issues of joint patent classification, automated search and examination system, cooperation between IP5 offices as well as the 13th conference, making important consensus.