WIPO China: Leading Innovation City for the High-Quality Development of IP

September 10, 2023

Nanjing, September 10 - The 5th Zijin International Intellectual Property (IP) Summit, jointly organized by the Nanjing Municipal People's Government and the Intellectual Property Office of Jiangsu Province, took place in Nanjing. This year's summit was structured around one main forum and four sub-forums, with in-depth exploration and insightful discussions focusing on the overarching theme of "Intellectual Property and Leading Innovation City." Ms. Wang Binying, the Deputy Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), sent a congratulatory letter to the Summit. Mr. Lu Pengqi, Deputy Commissioner of the China National Intellectual Property Administration, Mr. Gong Haibin, Deputy Secretary General of Jiangsu Provincial People's Government, Mr. Wu Wei, Vice Mayor of Nanjing Municipal People's Government, Ms. Liu Hua, Director of the WIPO Office in China, and Ms. Wendy Dorman-Smith, Consul General of Ireland in Shanghai delivered speeches at the event.

In her letter, Ms. Wang commended China for its good performance in the WIPO Global Innovation Index (GII) 2022 and the World Intellectual Property Indicators 2022, which reflects China's achievement in IP protection. She specifically noted that Chinese science and technology clusters (S&T) like Shenzhen–Hong Kong–Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai–Suzhou, ranking second, third and sixth respectively, are set to excel in the top 100 global rankings. She suggests that a nation’s innovation strength depends on the level of growth of its innovative capacity and acknowledgment of IP in core cities.

Marking the 50th anniversary of WIPO's collaboration with China, Ms. Binying discussed various highlights and plans for the future. She highlighted the steady growth of WIPO Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) services in China and their expansion to more courts elsewhere in the country. Additionally, two Chinese companies--Shanghai Westwell and Xi'an Kiss Future--were among the seven winners of the 2023 WIPO Global Awards, and six out of the 25 SME finalists were from China. Various other cooperation highlights included the extension of educational partnerships in IP through WIPO Summer Schools and the increase of accessible Chinese language books for visually impaired people thanks to the joining of two Chinese authorized entities through WIPO-led Accessible Books Consortium (ABC).

Ms. Wang also singled out Jiangsu Province for its good strides in IP, noting that it ranked top 2 and top 3 in China in terms of domestic patent applications and PCT filings respectively. The number of invention patents owned by 10,000 people reached 50.39, which remained in the first place in China for seven consecutive years. Two of the three "Best Cases of Enhanced Copyright Protection Promoting Industry Development" established by WIPO in China are from Jiangsu, namely the Nantong Home Textiles industry and the Wujiang Silk industry. Raycan, a SME from Suzhou won the 2022 WIPO Global Award. She recognized the leading role of Nanjing in Jiangsu in the field of IP and innovation and creation, and cited Nanjing for its impressive climb to 13th in 2022 in global S&T cluster rankings. Closing the speech, she reaffirmed WIPO's commitment to long-term and fruitful cooperation with China in the advancement of IP.

In the Opening of the Summit, several significant events took place, including the inauguration of the Biomedical Industry IP Operation Center, the signing of a new batch of talent-industry partnership agreements under the "IP Empowering Industrial Strength" initiative, and the launching ceremony of the full-chain protection by deepening the administrative and judicial connection of IP protection. Additionally, the Summit saw the release of a comprehensive report that evaluated the IP competitiveness of core cities in China. This report analyzed the results of 120 key cities in China from three perspectives, encompassing comprehensive, dimensional, and regional assessments. The top 10 cities in terms of overall strength were then identified in the following order: Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, and Tianjin.

Video Conversation by A. Michael Spence and Justin Yifu Lin

The Summit featured a video conversation between Mr. A. Michael Spencer, Laureate of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001, and Mr. Justin Yifu Lin, Professor and Dean of the Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University. Esteemed speakers from Peking University, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Huawei, Nanrui Group, WeBank, Via LA, and the Danish Patent and Trademark Office as well as other distinguished guests from domestic and international research institutes, enterprises, and IP organizations, delivered fascinating speeches.

The Zijin International IP Summit, aiming at stimulating IP creation, enhancing protection measures, and fostering practical applications, thereby amplifying IP's pivotal role in spurring innovation-driven growth, serves as a prestigious global platform for advancing IP. The fifth Summit takes a China-centered yet globally oriented approach, focusing specifically on the high-quality advancement of IP, and has garnered widespread acclaim and attention. It brings together a diverse range of participants, including heads or IP executives from more than 200 enterprises, as well as experts, scholars and industry elites from international organizations, government agencies, industrial associations, academia and business community, who shared their experience, collaborate and contribute to the ongoing dialogue on fostering innovation and sustainable development, both in China and worldwide.