The business acceptance hall of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Protection Center is launched at the meeting. [Photo/WeChat account: Shanghai_IPA]

The pace is picking up to develop a new national intellectual protection, or IP center, in Shanghai in East China.

A meeting was held in the city on March 16 to advance the work of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Protection Center, designed to be a national platform for collaborative IP protection and services.

The meeting aimed to implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and support Shanghai's emergence as a science and innovation center and as an IP powerhouse.

Rui Wenbiao, director of the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration, or SIPA, said that developing the Shanghai Intellectual Property Protection Center was of great significance for enhancing IP protection and services in China.

He urged the center to accelerate the establishment of a full-chain, one-stop IP collaborative protection system.

Rui also called for continuous improvement of fast and collaborative IP protection levels. This would be done, he said, by boosting patent pre-examination services and extending protection service supply chains. It would also be done by expanding patent navigation service functions and supporting regional industrial development and key technology breakthroughs.

At the meeting, a letter from the China National Intellectual Property Administration confirming that Shanghai Intellectual Property Protection Center had passed acceptance was announced. The relevant functions and services of the center were then introduced.

The center opened its pre-examination service platform last November and the first batch of 107 enterprises has applied for filing declarations.

The center has formed an 80-person mediator professional team and has established 24 sub-centers or workstations for IP protection assistance.

What's more, it has set up an overseas IP dispute guidance expert think tank.