Comprehensively deepen international cooperation on intellectual property rights along the the Belt and Road

The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that "the joint construction of the the Belt and Road has become a popular international public product and international cooperation platform", and put forward the requirement of "promoting the joint construction of high-quality development of the the Belt and Road". After nine years of solid promotion and construction, the "the Belt and Road" construction has yielded fruitful results and entered a period of stable development. As of October 2022, China has signed over 200 cooperation documents with 149 countries and 32 international organizations, forming over 3000 cooperation projects. Among them, comprehensively deepening international cooperation on intellectual property rights along the the Belt and Road is an important part of promoting high-quality development along the the Belt and Road.

Most countries along the "the Belt and Road" are also members of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the WTO. They accept and apply the same international intellectual property treaty rules, which has laid a good foundation for the "the Belt and Road" countries to carry out in-depth intellectual property cooperation. In recent years, Chinese enterprises have paid more and more attention to the distribution of intellectual property rights acquisition and use in countries along the "the Belt and Road", and the number of patent applications and authorizations in countries along the "the Belt and Road" has been growing steadily. But at the same time, most of the countries along the "the Belt and Road" are developing countries. Not only are there big differences in science and technology and economic development levels, but also there are significant differences in the development of intellectual property rights among countries, which is mainly reflected in differences in intellectual property legal systems, intellectual property management systems, intellectual property law enforcement efforts, intellectual property protection levels and other aspects. These objective differences present challenges and opportunities for deepening intellectual property cooperation. To comprehensively promote international cooperation on intellectual property rights along the "the Belt and Road", it is necessary to seek new policies and innovative paths on the basis of seeking common ground while reserving differences. To this end, we should focus on actively innovating, making progress, and deepening our efforts in the following areas.

　　Comprehensively promote cooperation in the construction of intellectual property systems and innovate rules for intellectual property protection. The "the Belt and Road" countries have different levels of scientific, technological and economic development, different resource advantages and endowments, and different demands for intellectual property rights. But these countries also have a common foundation for integrated cooperation in intellectual property systems, namely the international conventions on intellectual property protection that most countries have already joined and the need to protect their own intellectual property resources. At present, the China National Intellectual Property Administration of China has carried out in-depth cooperation with regional organizations such as the Patent Office of the Gulf Arab States Cooperation Council and the Eurasian Patent Office, established formal cooperation relations with more than 40 other countries, and signed the guiding document of the Intergovernmental Agreement on Strengthening Intellectual Property Cooperation along the the Belt and Road with the World Intellectual Property Organization. China's patents have been recognized by more countries. These collaborations are basically still at the level of framework agreements. In the future, the "the Belt and Road" countries should focus on two aspects to carry out regional integration cooperation of intellectual property system: first, based on the protection standards stipulated in the existing major international intellectual property treaties, the "the Belt and Road" countries should carry out system integration cooperation in terms of the conditions for the authorization and protection of intellectual property rights such as patents, trademarks, copyrights, protection duration, infringement identification rules, etc; By signing the "the Belt and Road" national protection agreement, the relevant consensus content will be institutionalized and legalized to reduce the risk of intellectual property protection caused by institutional differences in international trade. Second, most of the "the Belt and Road" countries are developing countries with rich historical and cultural resources. Compared with the advantages of developed countries in traditional intellectual property rights, the "the Belt and Road" countries should focus on the protection of traditional knowledge, genetic resources, geographical indications and other areas of intellectual property system integration cooperation. China can join an appropriate number of "the Belt and Road" countries as sponsors, with the support of the World Intellectual Property Organization, to establish an expert group on traditional knowledge, genetic resources and geographical indications of "the Belt and Road" countries at an early date, carry out research and drafting of the agreement, complete the consultation and drafting of the three agreements on traditional knowledge, genetic resources and geographical indications of "the Belt and Road" countries as soon as possible, and gradually implement them. If the "the Belt and Road" countries can take a first step in the innovation of the international intellectual property protection system, they can not only make important contributions to improving the international intellectual property protection system, but also better reflect the intellectual property resource advantages of developing countries and properly balance the advantages of developing countries in the field of traditional intellectual property.　

Comprehensively strengthen cooperation on intellectual property authorization and establish a highway for authorization review. The Patent Examination Highway (PPH) is a collaborative mechanism for patent management and authorization departments between countries advocated by the World Intellectual Property Organization and initiated by China in 2011. Its purpose is to reduce duplicate examinations, improve authorization efficiency, and save application costs. By the end of 2020, China's China National Intellectual Property Administration has signed a patent examination highway cooperation agreement with 30 patent examination agencies in the world, accelerating the overseas intellectual property distribution of Chinese enterprises. Among them, there are 16 intra regional partners of the "the Belt and Road" countries, and the coverage still has much room for growth. In the future, efforts should be strengthened. On the one hand, we should sign cooperation agreements on patent review highways with more "the Belt and Road" countries as soon as possible, and implement them; On the other hand, this cooperation model can be used for reference to extend the patent examination highway to the international licensing mechanisms of intellectual property rights such as trademark examination, integrated circuit layout design examination, variety right examination, and establish an international cooperation mechanism for intellectual property rights examination and licensing in the "the Belt and Road" countries. Only after the number and quality of intellectual property rights mutually authorized by countries along the "the Belt and Road" have increased significantly can deepening intellectual property cooperation have a solid foundation of innovation rights, and other aspects of intellectual property cooperation can be more stable and far sighted.

Comprehensively deepen cooperation in sharing intellectual property data and establish a comprehensive information service platform. The openness and connectivity of intellectual property information and data of the "the Belt and Road" countries is an integral part of strengthening the "the Belt and Road" intellectual property cooperation, and also a supporting means to ensure the orderly progress of the "the Belt and Road" intellectual property cooperation. The information in the "the Belt and Road" national intellectual property information platform should generally include information modules such as national intellectual property laws, policies, authorization procedures, protection channels and transactions. The promotion of intellectual property information disclosure and connectivity in the "the Belt and Road" countries can be implemented step by step. First of all, in the countries or international organizations of the "the Belt and Road" region, build intellectual property information communication platforms in various regions. For example, countries in Eastern Europe can build regional intellectual property information platforms relying on the European Patent Office, Russia and other CIS countries and regions can build regional intellectual property information platforms relying on the Eurasian Patent Office, and so on. Secondly, while building regional intellectual property information platforms, China should rely on the National Intellectual Property Information Service Center to build the "the Belt and Road" intellectual property information service platform, and carry out basic information retrieval services and high-end services such as information navigation and information mining. After the construction and operation of various regional platforms are normal, further communication and sharing of intellectual property information on regional platforms will be achieved. The construction of the "the Belt and Road" international intellectual property platform will involve cross-border, confidentiality and security issues of information. However, most of the information of intellectual property is public information, which is relatively easy to break through.　　

Comprehensively strengthen cooperation in intellectual property protection and safeguard international investment and trade. Firstly, by signing intellectual property protection agreements with countries along the route, when conditions are met and investment and trade needs are confirmed, intellectual property specialists can be dispatched to each other's embassies and consulates in the host countries or intellectual property protection institutions can be established. The main responsibilities of an intellectual property commissioner or intellectual property rights protection agency are to collect and analyze intellectual property information in the host country, grasp intellectual property dispute information of investment and trade enterprises in the host country, disclose intellectual property rights protection risks in the host country, and provide intellectual property protection consulting and assistance to domestic enterprises. Secondly, deepen cooperation in intellectual property judicial protection, administrative protection, and arbitration protection with countries along the Belt and Road, especially ASEAN and Eastern European countries. Establish the "the Belt and Road" judicial judgment and arbitration award assistance implementation mechanism, establish the "the Belt and Road" national intellectual property typical protection case information notification mechanism, establish the "the Belt and Road" national intellectual property judicial institutions, arbitration institutions regular exchange mechanism, and establish the "the Belt and Road" national cross-border joint law enforcement mechanism against intellectual property infringement and counterfeiting.

Comprehensively strengthen cooperation in intellectual property talent training and deepen cultural exchanges on intellectual property. Deepening IPR cooperation among the Belt and Road countries requires cultivating a large number of professionals. The cultivation of intellectual property cooperation professionals in the "the Belt and Road" countries requires two paths of innovation and unimpeded. First, a series of courses on intellectual property of the "the Belt and Road" countries are offered in the intellectual property and international trade majors of China's specialized institutions, and a number of intellectual property cooperation talents of the "the Belt and Road" countries are trained through standardized and systematic academic education. Second, we should strengthen the systematic training of the in-service personnel of the "the Belt and Road" countries' intellectual property review and authorization, legal affairs, intermediaries, law enforcement and other institutions, and cultivate a number of in-service "the Belt and Road" countries' intellectual property cooperation talents. At present, China's China National Intellectual Property Administration has set up several training courses, but the number of trainees is still small, the coverage of training topics is small, and joint training with countries along the line has not been started. Therefore, China's Intellectual Property Office can actively cooperate with Singapore's Intellectual Property Office, Israel's Patent Office and other national bureaus to jointly launch the "the Belt and Road" international intellectual property talent cooperation training project, and regularly carry out exchanges and training for intellectual property professionals in various fields of the "the Belt and Road" national review and authorization, legal, intermediary, law enforcement and other institutions, to meet the actual needs of the "the Belt and Road" countries for intellectual property cooperation.

By comprehensively deepening the international cooperation on intellectual property of the "the Belt and Road", implementing the concept of "joint consultation, joint construction and sharing", and deeply participating in the global governance system of intellectual property, it will help to promote the high-quality development of the "the Belt and Road" in the new era.