Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng (Right) and WIPO Director General Daren Tang sign a Memorandum of Understanding to enhance IP cooperation on Dec 9. [Photo by Zhang Chunhai/WeChat account: shanghaifabu]

The Shanghai Municipal People's Government and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to enhance exchange and cooperation in the field of intellectual property (IP) on Dec 9 in Shanghai.

The MOU is aimed at speeding up Shanghai's transformation into a high-level IP protection and international IP center city, and creating better support for the construction of the Shanghai International Science and Technology Innovation Center.

Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng and WIPO Director General Daren Tang signed the MOU on behalf of the two sides.

According to the MOU, Shanghai and WIPO will deepen cooperation in areas such as IP ecosystem construction, diversified IP dispute resolution mechanism construction, IP utilization, and IP talent cultivation, and bring more high-quality international IP resources to Shanghai.

Shanghai and WIPO had signed cooperation MOUs and supplementary agreements in 2014 and 2018 respectively. They have co-hosted the Shanghai International IP Forum, co-founded the Shanghai International College of IP, jointly awarded the Shanghai IP Innovation Award, and helped set up the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Shanghai Service.

Shanghai has seen rapid growth in its international patent applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) following the adoption of the Madrid System. The Shanghai-Suzhou cluster is currently ranked fifth among the world's top 100 science and technology clusters, according to the latest Global Innovation Index Report by WIPO.

Additionally, two innovative small and medium-sized enterprises in Shanghai have won the WIPO Global Awards.