Proceedings get underway at the 20th Shanghai International Intellectual Property Forum. [Photo by Chen Zhengbao/WeChat account: shanghaifabu]

The 20th Shanghai International Intellectual Property Forum kicked off on Dec 10 in the city in East China – with the theme of "Strengthening Legal Protection for Intellectual Property, Fueling Innovation-Driven Development of Digital Economy".

Chen Jining, Party secretary of Shanghai, attended the opening ceremony and delivered a keynote speech.

He said that Shanghai was speeding up its efforts to turn itself into an international hub for commerce, finance, trade, shipping and scientific and technological innovation.

He stressed that Shanghai would give top priority to intellectual property or IP work. Chen said this was a key way to boost high-quality economic growth – a vital aspect to improve the business environment – and become a crucial foundation to boost the city's core competitiveness.

Chen added that Shanghai would adopt more effective measures to enhance IP protection, establish a comprehensive service platform for IP, expand its mechanism for fast and coordinated IP protection, improve the registration rules for data IP and advance the joint governance of cross-regional IP protection in the Yangtze River Delta.

Shen Changyu, head of the China National Intellectual Property Administration or CNIPA and Daren Tang – director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO – also attended and addressed the forum.

Shen said that in the present era, information technology was clearly flourishing and the digital economy had emerged as a major driver for economic development. What's more, China was a large country with abundant data resources and a vibrant digital economy.

He said that CNIPA was working with Shanghai to push forwards the building of a high-level IP powerhouse in the city. This would deepen the pilot work of data IP and speed up the creation of an international digital capital with global influence.

WIPO's Tang said that the current year marked the 50th anniversary of  cooperation between WIPO and China and that in the period China had risen to be one of the most formidable IP engines in the world.

Tang added that Shanghai had played a significant role in backing the growth of China's IP ecosystem.

It had also backed the long-standing friendly cooperation with WIPO – which had yielded a number of positive outcomes, such as IP financing, IP arbitration and mediation and the application of IP to tackle climate change.

He said that the new cooperation memorandum of understanding inked by the two sides would help further deepen close collaboration, unleash the potential of innovation and creation through IP and build a better world.

The forum also unveiled the National Report on Intellectual Property Finance – jointly compiled by CNIPA and WIPO – sharing China's practices and experiences in the field of IP financial services.