Recently, Hubei Provincial Government and the State Intellectual Property Office(SIPO)of the PRC jointly signed an Agreement on Establishing Patent Examination Cooperation of SIPO in Hubei(hereinafter refers to as Hubei Center) to meet the increasing needs of patent applications and improve the IP services in central and western region including Hubei province.
According to the agreement, the establishment of the Hubei Center will help to further expand the number of patent examiners and improve the examination capability for patent applications, promote the local IP and economic development.
It is learnt that Hubei Center is to be located in East Lake New Technology Development Zone of Wuhan City. There will a team of about 2,000 patent examiners and administrative staff members by the end of 2017, capable of examining about 110,000 patent applications annually.
