The Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration and the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission – both located in East China's Shanghai city – on July 15 issued a plan to establish intellectual property operations centers in local universities.

The purpose of the plan is to boost the IP capacity of universities and leverage their technological patents to spur economic and social development.

Under the plan, the two authorities will choose up to 10 local universities to build the IP operations centers.

The centers will be bricks and mortar institutions integrating technology transfers and IP management and operations. Their main tasks will be to publish achievements made in IP, to improve the quality of innovation and creativity, to promulgate information about patents, to build connections between the supply and demand of patents, to innovate patent operations modes and to explore open patent licensing.

The Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration and the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission have undertaken to provide support for the centers in resources, policy, training and in other areas.