Mr. Chong Quan, Deputy China International Trade Representative of MOFCOM, attended and addressed the Sino-U.S. IPR Roundtable held in Salt Lake City, U.S. on September 24.

Mr. Chong Quan said that international economic and trade relations are increasingly close nowadays, and IPR has become an important factor exerting great influence on the survival and the development of enterprises. Especially, with the rapid development of electronic information, bio-pharmaceutical, energy and other high-tech industries, the influence of IPR is continuously increasing. The impact of the international financial crisis continues, various countries should continue to strengthen exchanges, innovate development models, and deepen cooperation.

Mr. Chong Quan also said as each other’s important economic and trade partner, the dependence of China and the United States is constantly enhanced. At present, China and the United States is each other's second largest trading partner. Bilateral trade value between China and the U.S. in 2011 was over US$ 440 billion, setting a record high. Therefore, China and the United States should enhance mutual trust, deepen, and steadily push forward the cooperation in the field of intellectual property rights, and thus boost the comprehensive, sustainable and healthy development of economic and trade relations.

Mr. Chong Quan said that by existing working group mechanism of IPR, China and the U.S. held fruitful discussions on intellectual property legislation, law enforcement and other aspects. The two countries reached a Framework Agreement on Cooperation of Sino-U.S. IPR and maintained close communication with each other on the details of implementation of the Agreement. During China’s delegation visiting in Washington, the two countries also discussed the issues of mutual concerned. China’s delegations also visited the headquarter of USPTO and exchanged views on the censorship and the practice of USPTO.

Mr. Chong Quan pointed out that the Chinese Government attached great importance to the protection of IPR. Currently, Trademark Law and Copyright Law are being amended as well as the third revision of the Patent Law and its implementation rules have been successfully completed. The two countries enjoy highly complementary in the fields of economy and trade, and the cooperation between the enterprises of the two countries has a lot of space and potential. MOFCOM believes that based on equality, respect, frank and rationality, the two countries could create good atmosphere for the protection of intellectual property rights by strengthening dialogs and exchanges, so as to promote bilateral and even lasting healthy development of international trade and economic relations.

Governor of Utah and Managing Director of the Office of Economic Development also addressed the Roundtable. Nearly 100 representatives from Chinese Supreme People's Court, Supreme People's Procuratorate, Ministry of Commerce, Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Culture, General Administration of Customs, State Administration for Industry and Commerce, Copyright Office and the Intellectual Property Office, some Chinese enterprises and U.S. Government held an extensive and in-depth discussion on the protection of intellectual property rights issues of concerned.

At the same day, Mr. Chong Quan also met with Governor of Utah and exchanged views on the development of Sino-U.S. economic and trade cooperation, especially, expanding economic and trade cooperation between China and Utah.