Nearly 40 national officials responsible for intellectual property rights (IPR) administration attended a two-day IPR workshop in Beijing focusing on legal issue they face on the job, reported Tuesday's China Daily.

The workshop, supported by the European Union (EU), concluded Tuesday.

It was designed to raise awareness among China's key administrative departments of their IPR legal responsibilities, said EU representative Micha Ramakers.

The event was part of the EU-China IPR co-operation programme which was prepared in 1996 and substantially implemented in 1999. The programme aims to propel China's IPR development and particularly help China's IPR system to further meet the standards of the World Trade Organization, said Ramakers.

Over the past few years, the programme has helped train hundreds of Chinese judges and lawyers, officials within administrative departments, professors in universities and staff in research institutions, he said.

According to Chen Yusong, an official of the Department for Treaty and Law of the Ministry of Commerce, China and the EU have held dozens of similar workshops to benefit officials in his ministry, State Intellectual Property Office, Legislative Affairs Office under the State Council and professors at Peking University.

"The two-day workshop is very useful for us to deepen IPR protection awareness. We've learned a lot about IPR situations in European countries. But we should deal with IPR issues in China according to our own conditions, instead of simply copying the modes of other countries," said Wang Peishu, an official of Copyright Bureau of Northeast China's Jilin Province, in an interview with China Daily.

Li Jie, an official of the National Copyright Administration, said China still faces some problems in IPR enforcement. The Chinese Government takes a firm stand to tighten legal enforcements of copyrights and other IPR-related aspects.

"We wish to continue IPR co-operation with EU and conduct consultations on IPR hot topics with European countries," Liu said.

He said more efforts will be put on managing online products and the Internet-based copyrights.

Source: China Daily