http://www.epo.org/news-issues/news/2017/20170601.html
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1 June 2016
The EPO and SIPO of China have co-operated since 1985 and have
had a privileged strategic co-operation partnership for the last 10 years. EPO
President Battistelli and SIPO Commissioner Shen met in Malta on 30 May on the
margin of the 10th IP5 Heads Meeting to further this privileged
partnership.
SIPO has used EPO’s search tool, EPOQUE, locally installed at
the SIPO premises since 1997. The EPO and SIPO agreed to move SIPO from a
locally installed version of EPOQUE to EPO’s internet-based version (EPOQUE
Net). This allows SIPO to be directly linked to the EPO over the internet and
with the additional advantage that SIPO is synchronised with the EPO and the
developments to the search system which we undertake on a regular basis. The
EPO offers EPOQUE Net to some 45 patent offices around the world.
The EPO and SIPO also concluded a historic agreement on data
exchange replacing a patchwork of previous agreements securing availability of
Chinese and European data at the two offices.
The two agreements secure the strong relationship between the
EPO and SIPO and cement the future of the Cooperative Patent Classification
(CPC) as the refined classification scheme for the two offices.
SIPO received 1.339 million applications for invention patents
last year, a 21.5% increase from its previous year. The number of domestic
inventions exceeded 1 million. Therefore a well-functioning data exchange and
search system is pertinent to the future efficiency and quality of our products
and services.