Fourteenth Meeting of Guangdong/Hong Kong Expert Group on Protection of Intellectual Property Rights (with photo)
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     The 14th Meeting of the Guangdong/Hong Kong Expert Group on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights was held in Hong Kong today (August 18). The Expert Group agreed to continue deepening and actively promoting co-operation on intellectual property (IP) in Hong Kong and Guangdong, and focus on fostering IP trading in the next phase of development.

     Co-operation projects of the Expert Group for 2015-16 cover six areas, namely:

* Improving the mechanism of Guangdong/Hong Kong IP co-operation items;
* Reinforcing co-operation on cross-boundary protection of IP in Guangdong and Hong Kong;
* Promoting co-operation on IP trading in both places;
* Promoting exchange and deliberation in IP in both places;
* Improving guidance service in IP in both places; and
* Organising IP publicity and education activities in both places.

     At the meeting, the two sides respectively reviewed the co-operative projects completed in the past year including the Guangdong/Hong Kong Seminars on IP and Development of Small and Medium Enterprises and the exchange programmes between Guangdong and Hong Kong IP rights enforcement agencies, enterprises, IP-related non-government organisations, secondary students; and shared their proposals on IP co-operation next year including encouraging the exchange and co-operation of e-commerce industry and trademark owners in the two places as well as jointly producing an Announcement in the Public Interest on copyright protection.

     Law enforcement agencies in Guangdong and Hong Kong also continued to work closely in the past year to combat the smuggling of infringing goods across the boundaries under the co-ordination mechanism for handling IP-related cases.

     During the press conference after the meeting, the Director-General of the Guangdong Intellectual Property Office, Mr Ma Xianmin, said, "In the past year, we finished 19 co-operation items in the areas of exchange and deliberation, IP trading, cross-boundary protection, publicity and education activities as well as guidance service and the like. The success of the co-operation greatly promoted the development of IP industries, and rendered great support to the vigorous growth of the economy and trading through good IP environments in the two places."

     The Director of Intellectual Property, Ms Ada Leung, said, "Fostering IP trading by Guangdong and Hong Kong becomes the major development target in the next phase. We believe that promoting the further development of intellectual property trading, including the effective use of intellectual property, will help drive economic development in the two places."

     The Expert Group was set up after the Sixth Plenary of the Hong Kong/Guangdong Co-operation Joint Conference in August 2003. It aims at enhancing exchanges and co-operation on various aspects of IP protection, including promotion and education, training, enforcement, research study and information dissemination.

     The Guangdong delegation was led by the Director-General of the Guangdong Intellectual Property Office and comprised officials from the Guangdong Intellectual Property Office; the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department; the Department of Commerce of Guangdong Province; the Guangdong Provincial Administration for Industry and Commerce; the Guangdong Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television Bureau (Copyright Bureau); the Guangdong Sub-Administration of China Customs, the Patent Examination Cooperation Guangdong Center of the Patent Office of the State Intellectual Property Office, as well as the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the People's Government of Guangdong Province. The Hong Kong delegation was headed by the Director of Intellectual Property and comprised officials from the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau, the Intellectual Property Department and the Customs and Excise Department.

     A summary of the co-operation items is uploaded to the website of the Intellectual Property Department (www.ipd.gov.hk/eng/ip_cooperation_corner/meeting.htm).

Ends/Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Issued at HKT 16:00

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