The China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) hosted the 7th annual meeting of the Industrial Design 5 Forum (ID5) from Beijing by video conference, November 1-2, 2021. The forum consisted of representatives from the CNIPA, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Japan Patent Office (JPO), the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), and the European Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).

Acknowledging the growing importance of industrial design, the five largest trademark offices in the world (TM5) created the ID5 forum. The forum focuses on improving consistency in registration policies, cataloging office practices, promoting interoperable procedural frameworks, and protecting emerging designs such as graphical user interfaces (GUIs), animations and other new technology designs.

The WIPO delegation led by Director General Daren Tang attended the meeting as an observer. During the course of the ID5 conference the CNIPA along with the USPTO, the EUIPO, KIPO and JPO signed an Agreed Statement on the ID5 Cooperation 2021 (《2021年中美欧日韩外观设计五局合作联合声明》). The Agreed Statement recognized the importance of cooperating on the use of digital and emerging technological means to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and facilitate economic recovery between the five offices.

According to the CNIPA’s Director Shen Changyu, China is making efforts to accelerate its accession to the system governed by the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs (《工业品外观设计国际注册海牙协定》).

In Daren Tang’s opinion, the ID5 has been successfully interacting with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and promoting intellectual property rights in industrial designs.

At the meeting, the five offices agreed to the completion of 3 projects on the exchange of digital documents on the priority of industrial designs between the five offices, the research on quality management, and the digital resources of non-patent literature (NPL). Among many other issues covered, the operating procedures of the ID5 cooperation were amended and the plan to draft a directive manual on the image submission of industrial designs was announced.

A meeting between the ID5 and the design community it serves was also held.