On May 28, Liu Junchen, vice minister of SAIC met with the visiting assistant secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Liu Junchen hoped to further strengthen bilateral connections, to discuss the concluding of MOU and to promote bilateral communication and cooperation.
Liu Junchen at first welcomed Mr. Abdullah Al-Shibli for his visit to SAIC and introduced SAIC. Liu Junchen said that SAIC was an authority in charge of market supervision and relevant administrative law enforcement directly affiliated under the State Council. Trademark registration and trademark law enforcement were one important work for SAIC. In 2014, China had 2.2854 million trademark applications, which accumulatively to be 16.1 million in total. The trademark registrations were 106.8 million if counted accumulatively. SAIC also strengthened the cracking downs on infringements and counterfeits to investigate many trademark illegal cases.
Liu Junchen expressed that six members of GCC applied 768 applications and registered 455 in the past year. Currently, there were more than 400 cases in relating to GCC members under review procedures before Trademark Review and Adjudication Board. Liu Junchen said that SAIC would accurately apply laws when reviewing those cases to strictly crack down malicious registration and to protect relevant party’s legitimate interest.
Liu Junchen said that GCC was an important political and economic organization. China highly valued the relations with GCC and undertook actively the Free Trade Area negotiations with GCC. He expressed that Mr. Abdullah Al-Shibli’s visiting provided a good opportunity for strengthening bilateral cooperation and communication. He hoped to strengthen mutual connections, to actively discuss the concluding of MOU in the areas of IP protections, consumer rights protections, and anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competitions to establish a mechanism for bilateral cooperation.
Mr. Abdullah Al-Shibli thanked for the meeting with Mr. Liu Junchen and introduced the information of GCC. He said that trademark registrations of GCC members were undertaken respectively in each country, but GCC was actively promoting the unified trademark registration and administration mechanism. He hoped to learn experiences from China in trademark registration and protection. He also wished to strengthen cooperation with SAIC in staff training and expert exchanges.
