On October 21, the 18th China-EU Heads of Office Meeting was held in Chengdu, Sichuan. Shen Changyu, Director of the China National Intellectual Property Administration, and Antonio Campinos, President of the European Patent Office, attended the meeting.

Shen Changyu said that under the framework of the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two offices, the working level and experts in various fields of the two sides have communicated closely this year, and the cooperation between the two offices has been further deepened. The cooperation in the fields of patent documents and classification, examination business, automation, etc. has achieved the expected results. Next year is the 40th anniversary of the cooperation between the two offices. We look forward to further expanding and deepening the cooperation areas and jointly promoting the comprehensive strategic partnership to a new level.

Antonio Campinos highly praised the cooperation results between the two offices and looked forward to the continued in-depth cooperation between the two offices in the future, further exchanges on intellectual property issues such as the use of search tools and cooperation between the five offices, sharing their respective successful experiences, and constantly opening up new cooperation situations.

The two offices agreed to jointly issue a joint communiqué on October 22, announcing that the China-EU PCT International Search Authority Pilot Project will officially enter the second phase on December 1 this year, and Chinese applicants can then directly use RMB to pay patent-related fees.

At the meeting, the two sides also signed the 2025 annual work plan for cooperation between the two offices. During their stay in Sichuan, Campinos and his delegation also visited relevant high-tech enterprises in Chengdu.

Lu Pengqi, deputy director of the China National Intellectual Property Administration , attended the meeting.