HONG KONG – Intellectual property is becoming an obvious important factor for doing business and corporation's strategy planning, says Shen Changyu, commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China during the opening session at the 5th Business of IP Asia Forum here.

From the year 1984, China’s government has been taking steps to strengthen IP protection, and the country has become a strong IP power, with its trademark/patent application numbers are in the top list worldwide in recent years. It has also been building and improving IP laws and actively joining domestic and international treaties. 

"With the deepening economic globalization, the cooperation between Hong Kong and mainland China has also been strengthened since 1997," Shen said. "From 2000, Hong Kong has held IP seminars with mainland China and Macau annually."

Numbers of patent applications handed by Hong Kong to SIPO increased from 5,438 in 1997 to 44,411 in 2014, with approval numbers from 4,165 to 35,524. Accordingly, China has been providing technical support for Hong Kong. 

Creativity is the core of China's economic and technology development, says Shen, and IP is the foundation of creativity. With the goal of building China as a strong power of IP, he believes that the cooperation between mainland and Hong Kong will be mutually beneficial.