The city of Shanghai in East China has long had a history of cooperation and exchange with the World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO, which is based in the city of Geneva in Switzerland.

It's a relationship that has contributed to the city's development as an international intellectual property or IP protection hub.

China's cooperation with WIPO dates back to November 1973, when a Chinese government delegation attended the fourth series of meetings of the WIPO and its governing bodies in Geneva as an observer. This marked the beginning of half a century of cooperation between China and WIPO.

Since then, Shanghai has maintained a good cooperative relationship with WIPO. In fact, in 2014 and 2018, the Shanghai Municipal Government and WIPO signed memorandums of understanding – or MoUs – and supplementary agreements on IP. They laid a solid foundation for Shanghai to comprehensively improve its IP work level and deepen its multidimensional cooperation and exchange in the field.

On Dec 9, 2023, the Shanghai municipal government and WIPO signed a new MoU on strengthening exchanges and cooperation in IP in Shanghai, providing better support for accelerating the construction of an international IP protection highland and an international IP center city – as well as the Shanghai International Science and Technology Innovation Center.

According to the MoU, the Shanghai Municipal Government and WIPO will deepen their cooperation in the areas of IP ecosystem construction, diversified IP dispute resolution mechanism construction, IP utilization, and IP talent cultivation. In addition, they will promote more international high-quality IP resources to settle in Shanghai.

Let's review some of the highlights of Shanghai's cooperation and exchanges with WIPO!

1

[Photo provided to ensipa.cn]

In December 2011, Zhao Wen, then vice mayor of Shanghai, led a delegation to WIPO. Since then, Zhao has led several delegations to visit the WIPO headquarters in Geneva and called on then WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry.

2

[Photo provided to ensipa.cn]

On May 7-11, in 2013, Christian Wichard, deputy director-general of WIPO, visited Shanghai to participate in the first China (Shanghai) International Technology Fair. WIPO is the supporting unit of the fair.

3

In September 2014, Lyu Guoqiang, then director-general of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration (SIPA), attended the 54th Assemblies of the Member States of WIPO. Lyu delivered a speech entitled "IP Pledge Financing and Value Realization" at the special conference on "IP Financing Facilitates the Realization of Innovative Value" that was jointly organized by China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), the Intellectual Property Office (United Kingdom) and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore.

4

[Photo provided to ensipa.cn]

In December 2014, Yang Xiong, then mayor of Shanghai, and Francis Gurry, then director-general of WIPO, jointly signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Development Cooperation in the Field of IP between the Shanghai Municipal People's Government and WIPO. The Shanghai International Intellectual Property Forum was then held for the first time.