June 30th to July 10th, 2008: Invited by WIPO and WTO, Prof. Xiang Yu, Director, Chinese-German Institute of Intellectual Property, attended the WIPO-WTO Colloquium for Teachers of Intellectual Property held in the headquaters of WIPO and WTO, Geneva, Switzerland.

During the two-week symposium academics, consultants, experts and officials of the WIPO, WTO and UPOV explained the history, connotation, development trend, correlation and executive routine of all the important international conventions related with intellectual property in detail. The symposium included the Background and Development Trend of TRIPS; Influence of Intellectual Property on the Economy; The Future Work Plan of WIPO; Methods for Utilizing the Resources of Center of Knowledge Management and Electronic Library, WIPO; The Change and Development of Copyright Rights, Trademarks, Industrial Designs, Geographical Indications, and Patents, etc.; Conflict and Harmonization between Intellectual Property Protection and maintenance of Public Health; Executive Routine, Basic Standard and Exemption Condition of Intellectual Property dispute settlement mechanism of WTO; Relationship between the IP Protection and Fair Competition; International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants(UPOV); Patent protection of Biotechnology and Convention on Biological Diversity; New Negotiation of intergovernmental panel and the new development under WTO on the protection of Gene Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Custom Culture; E-commerce, Domain Name, Arbitration and Mediation Center of WIPO, etc.

Experts from Canada, Australia, China, Brazil and other twenty-two countries gave presentations on the latest development of their countries’ intellectual property systems. During the symposium, Academics and Consultants of WIPO and WTO discussed disputes regarding intellectual property and WIPOs mechanism for settlement. This enhanced the understanding of the actual operational procedures of the mechanism and the application of legal norms. In addition, they also exchanged the experience of research and teaching in the field of intellectual property.

The symposium aimed at updating the understanding of IP Academics from the participant countries regarding international intellectual property systerm. The symposium also supplied a good platform for the communication among academics from difeerent countries and international collaboration for research in the field of intellectual property. Only one representative of each country was invited to attend the symposium, and the representatives were selected among many excellent applicants by WIPO and WTO.

During his stay in Geneva, Prof. Xiang Yu also visited China’s mission at WTO. The ambassador and other notable persons indicated that the support of domestic intellectual property experts was required significantly during China’s negotiation with WTO. Professor Xiang Yu said, according to the concrete requests of Chinese delegation in the international intellectual property negotiation, he was very pleased to utilize his speciality and wide international cooperation and lead his reserch team to provide consulting advice in order to contribute more towards Chinas development.