On May 19, 2014, at the invitation of Prof.Yu Xiang, director of Chinese-German institute for intellectual property, school of management, former deputy director of the European Patent office (EPO) Prof.Manuel Desantes,who is currently the professor in Spain university of Alicante school of law ,visited school of management and delivered a lecture named "the European Union Patent System versus European Patent System - Past, present and future of Patent protection and Patent litigation in Europe". This is the 35 times that prof. Desantes has come to China. In addition to academic exchanges, he also expected to have a further cooperation with Chinese-German institute for IP and search for possibilities to jointly apply for international cooperation projects in order to promote China-EU partnership on intellectual property education and research.

Lecture started on time, the host prof.Yu Xiang first made a brief introduction of prof.Desantes’s great achievements. The audience expressed the warmest welcome to the international friend who has deep feelings with China. In order to inspire the audience, Prof.Desantes emphasized the importance of intellectual property rights, as well as introduced European patent and European Union patent system by telling vivid stories. In his view, China is a very important partner. He expected to establish an in-depth cooperating relationship with China in the aspect of intellectual property. He also emphasized the important role that intellectual property played in the common market of Europe. After that, prof.Desantes comes to the issue of unitary patent system in the EU, he pointed out that a unitary patents system including single patent office, single patent granting procedure, single title, single legislation and common courts. He expected that the first EU patent(covering 26 EU countries, expect Spain and Italy) will turn up in 2015.

At last, prof.Desantes earnestly pointed out that the audience at present is the future and hope for the development of Chinas patent system and nation’s innovation, he encouraged everyone to become the leaders of new generation in patent field. He welcomed the students at present to the university of Alicante for communicating and invited a PhD candidate in Chinese-German institute for intellectual property Mr.Liu Xin, who would be exchanged to the technical university of Munich in Germany in the September, for a short-term communication trip. The master progamme of intellectual property in Alicante is among the top five in Europe, rank No.3 among all IP progammes. The top two are the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center and Center of International Studies in Intellectual Property.

After the lecture, prof. Desantes use limited time to answered the questions from audience patiently and won warmest applause.The audience included not only the students form the management school and law school in HUST, but also examiners from Patent examination cooperation Hubei center of the patent office, SIPO and patent agents from Beijing DaCheng law office(Wuhan).