16-17 April 2009, Brussels 

The 5th EU-China IPR Dialogue took place in Brussels over two days and co-chaired by Ms Ewa Synowiec, Director, DG Trade in the European Commission and Ms. Li Ling, Director-General,  Department of Treaty and Law of the Ministry of Commerce of P.R. China. The Dialogue continues the EU and China’s relationship on IP-related issues giving both sides the opportunity to exchange their views on developments with Europe and China’s respective IPR policy, update on progress made and consider the way forward on key action areas such as trademark law, music content censorship, and licensing agreements and standards in the ICT sector.

This year's Dialogue addressed a number of key IPR issues including: 

• Trademark Law and trademark registration (China confirmed that the EU could comment on the draft Trademark Law according to China’s legislative law); 

• Copyright and related rights, including recent developments related to copyright protection, broadcasting of copyrighted works, optical discs plants and online piracy (including, China's welcome to EU suggestions once the legislative process for the Copyright Law revision starts);

• Music content censorship;  

• Geographical indications;  

• Patent and design protection, including at trade fairs;  

• Protection of undisclosed information in the pharmaceutical and agricultural chemical sectors; 

• Licensing agreements, security certification and IPR standardisation in the ICT sector;  

• Plant variety protection.  

Both sides discussed their IPR strategies covering IPR enforcement in retail and wholesale markets; civil and administrative enforcement procedures; customs action; criminal prosecution as well as practice of IPR enforcement lawsuits; and agreed to further co-operate in combating online IPR violations. Both sides noted the importance of the IPR2 Project as a key tool of their bilateral co-operation.  

IPR2 supported the preparation of this dialogue with documentation and will ensure that up and coming Project activities are in line with its Joint Conclusions 2009. It was agreed that the next session of the EU-China IP Dialogue will take place in Beijing in April 2010. 

The IP Dialogue is reinforced by regular IP Working Group meetings which brings together officials from a range of agencies and ministries in the area of IP protection, EU experts and representatives of European industry.

The first EU-China IPR Dialogue started in 2004 and enables both sides to exchange information on multilateral and bilateral IPR-related issues, on national IP legislation and practices, and to identify shortcomings and proposals for improvement.

Conclusions from 2008 IPR Dialogue.

Useful links 

European Commission's DG Trade IPR in China.  

For more information on IPR2's support to the EU-China Dialogues, contact Mr Carlo Pandolfi This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .  

For general information on IPR2, contact Ms Tamryn Barker This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

[IPR2 ref. CC3.AW2.001]