FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 02 October 2014 – The International Intellectual Property Institute’s (IIPI) Chairman and President, Bruce Lehman, delivered a keynote address at the U.S. and China Intellectual Property Dialogue in Santa Clara, California today. Lehman’s address, entitled “Conflict or Cooperation: the Way Forward for the U.S. and China,” contrasted the common interests of the U.S. and China as the world’s two largest patent filers against rising tensions over alleged Chinese cyber espionage and theft of U.S. industrial trade secrets.
Elaine Wu, attorney advisor for the USPTO, told dialogue participants that China has now surpassed the United States as the country with the largest number of patent filings in the World.
Weixing SHEN, Associate Dean of Beijing’s Tsinghua University Law School, explained that China’s emergence as a world leader in patent filings was the result of an exploding national investment in R&D that is now increasing at an annual rate of 20 percent.
Lehman told the 150 participants, “As the World’s two leading patent powers, the U.S. and China should be cooperating rather than arguing about global intellectual property policy.” He described the efforts of his organization and stated, “There is a significant need for both countries to promote the use of intellectual property rights as a tool for high-tech economic development in emerging market developing countries. NGOs like IIPI provide an excellent means to provide capacity building assistance to these nations”
Lehman called on the dialogue participants “to develop broader and deeper levels of cooperation in order to promote U.S.-China bi-lateral support of such programs to provide global assistance to both least developed countries and emerging innovation economies in order to accomplish these objectives.” Lehman went on to add “Our countries seek to grow in a mutually respectful, peaceful, and harmonious relationship. These LDCs and emerging innovation economies represent billions of potential producers, consumers, and knowledge-based partners who have yet to develop the capacity to engage in a meaningful way with the developed world as participants in a just, sustainable, and global knowledge-based economy. Both countries should partner in cooperation to accomplish this objective.”
Participants in the dialogue, which included IP experts from China and the US, shared their experiences, strategies and recommendations on IP issues with the goal of helping to achieve the “Chinese Dream” of sustainable economic development through IP.
The dialogue was co-hosted by the GAO Lulin Foundation and the Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association (SVIPL). Dr. Gao Lulin, an uncommonly qualified expert in intellectual property, serves on IIPI’s Board of Advisors. Dr. Gao served as Commissioner of the Chinese Patent Office and Commissioner of State Intellectual Property Office of China. He was a senior advisor to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for two years and is currently the Honorary Chairman of the China Intellectual Property Society, Vice Chairman of the China Internet Society and a Member of the Steering Committee of the China Internet Network Information Center. In 1995, Dr. Gao was given the Grand Star Cross by the German government for his remarkable contributions to the field of IP protection and international cooperation and in that same year, the European Patent Office awarded him the International Cooperation Medal for his contributions to the field. Bruce Lehman was the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Commissioner of Patents & Trademarks prior to founding the International Intellectual Property Institute.
For further information or to schedule interview request, please contact Andrew Hirsch at ahirsch@iipi.org or at (202) 544-6610.