On September 21, Beijing time, the 61st series of meetings of the general assembly of the member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) opened in Geneva, Switzerland. It was the first time held in the mixed mode of online plus entity. Shen Changyu, director of the State Intellectual Property Office of the people's Republic of China, led the Chinese government delegation to attend the meeting and delivered a general speech at the meeting by remote means.
Shen Changyu said in his speech that COVID-19 has brought great challenges to global innovation activities. WIPO and its member states have taken active actions to deal with the epidemic and achieved positive results. The State Intellectual Property Office of China has also taken a series of measures to provide relief measures and facilitation services for applicants. From January to July this year, the State Intellectual Property Office of China accepted a total of 818000 invention patent applications, 5171000 trademark registration applications, 36000 PCT international patent applications and 4551 Madrid international trademark applications, all of which realized the adverse growth under the influence of the epidemic. China is willing to continue to work with WIPO and its member states to jointly meet the challenges, provide high-quality services for global users, and promote global innovation cooperation and economic recovery.

Shen Changyu highly appreciates director general Francis gorui's efforts in all aspects of WIPO in the past 12 years: the internal management system of the organization has become more standardized, the revenue and assets have increased steadily; the coverage of the intellectual property registration system has expanded unprecedentedly; the conclusion and entry into force of a number of International treaties, such as the Beijing Treaty on audio visual performances, have consolidated WIPO's leadership in international rule making It has provided a large amount of technical assistance to developing countries and the least developed countries to promote a more balanced, inclusive and effective global intellectual property system, and actively applied new technologies such as artificial intelligence to optimize the information system to ensure the normal operation of business during the epidemic period.

Shen also congratulated Deng Hongsen, the new director general, and hoped that WIPO under his leadership would continue to maintain a good momentum of development. China will, as always, support WIPO to play an important role in the global intellectual property system.

The Chinese government delegation is composed of the State Intellectual Property Office of China, the Ministry of foreign affairs, the State Copyright Office, the permanent mission of China to Geneva and the Intellectual Property Office of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China. The all China Association of patent agents attended the meeting as an observer. (intellectual property news, Yang Wenjing)