On June 23, Liu Junchen, vice Minister of SAIC met with the visiting Commissioner of the IP Office of New Zealand (IPONZ) Ms. Mandy McDonald. Liu Junchen expressed to strengthen communication and coordination in bilateral cooperation and multilateral mechanisms, to enlarge cooperation and to promote worldwide intellectual property development.
Liu Junchen welcomed the visit of Ms. Mandy McDonald and the delegation. He introduced the functions of SAIC, trademark registrations, the revision on Trademark Law. He expressed that by the end of May, there were accumulatively 16.57 million trademark applications, and 11.1 million trademark registrations, all ranking number 1 in the world. The rapid growth in trademark applications brought out a new challenge for trademark examination and administration, SAIC and Trademark Office therefore increased work efficiency greatly. The online application had accounted for 60.56% of the whole application in the last year. SAIC also strengthened the protection on trademarks. AIC authorities and market supervision departments in 2014 all investigated about 42 400 cases involving trademarks, transferred 300 to judicial authorities. At the meantime, SAIC strengthened the cooperation with WIPO and other IP authorities, which effectively protected other countries’ trademarks and encouraged domestic enterprises to register other countries’ trademarks through Madrid system.
Liu Junchen indicated that SAIC highly valued the cooperation with relevant authorities in the world. Currently it has signed 45 cooperation agreements with 41 national authorities in 29 countries and with 3 international organizations. SAIC has signed a market entering and regulating agreement with the New Zealand Economic Development Ministry-predecessor of Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. SAIC would like to strengthen the cooperation with Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the inner IP Office, to negotiate the signing of an MOU to expand current cooperation from market entering and regulating to trademark registration and protection and consumer rights’ protection.
Ms. McDonald thanked for the meeting with Mr. Liu Junchen and introduced him with the information on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and its inner IP Office. She expressed that IPONZ currently faced the same challenge of rapid growth in applications to examinations. IPONZ would like to strengthen cooperation in trademarks with SAIC, update current agreements, enlarge cooperation to mutually promote trademark development in China and in New Zealand.
