The 25th CNIPA-JPO Heads Meeting was held in Kyoto, Japan on November 1 (local time). Commissioner Shen Changyu of China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) and Commissioner Naoko Munakata of Japan Patent Office (JPO) attended the meeting.

Shen Changyu remarked that 2018 marks the 40th anniversary of the China-Japan Peace and Friendship Treaty; China and Japan had high-level reciprocal visits, continuously improved relationship and steadily deepened cooperation, providing good environment and opportunity for the further deepening of IP cooperation between the two countries. CNIPA and JPO enjoy over 30 years of cooperation and friendship; especially in the recent year, the two offices had close high-level communications and the bilateral cooperation is moving towards a richer, more practical and more efficient direction. In the institutional reform of Chinese government this year, function of CNIPA has been further strengthened; CNIPA hopes to, on the basis of existing cooperation in aspects of patent-related legal system and its application, experts communication, Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH), design, re-examination and human resource development, further expand the field of cooperation to trademark and geographical indication, strengthen communication with JPO in fields of new technologies including Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, and promote the deepening of cooperation between the two offices.

Naoko Munakata expressed that in the context of comprehensive warming relationship between China and Japan, active bilateral dialogues in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship gave fresh impetus to the closer IP cooperation between the two countries. JPO is willing to seize the new opportunity and meet new challenges in the IP field together with CNIPA.

During the meeting, the two offices reviewed bilateral cooperation in the fields of legal system communication, exchanges of examiners, automation, design, re-examination and human resource development in the past year, decided to further extend the China-Japan PPH pilot program to October 31, 2023, and made in-depth exchanges on strengthening cooperation in the trademark field, enriching content of PPH cooperation, building talent exchange mechanism, raising efficiency of relevant cooperation mechanisms and planning future cooperation.