Seminar on Chinese IP Law and China and Global Governance Hosted by University of Lapland

On 12 November, the University of Lapland, in collaboration with the IPR University Center, hosted a seminar focusing on Chinese intellectual property law and China’s role in global governance.

The seminar, titled ‘Ongoing Reforms in Chinese and European Legal Frameworks’, was sponsored by the IPR University Center Association. The University of Lapland is one of the six Finnish institutions of the IPR University Center and a member of the Finnish China Law Center.

The event was free and open to the public, and was of interest to a variety of audiences including lawyers,  the business sector (including startups and entrepreneurs), students and scholars, as well as to the legislature and policymakers.

Event speakers included Professor Li Mingde, Director of the Intellectual Property Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a key Chinese partner of the Finnish China Law Center.

Professor Li Mingde of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Photo credit: http://www.iolaw.org.cn)

Other key speakers included Sheng Hongsheng, Professor of Public International Law at Shanghai University of Political Sciences and Law and Director of the OBOR Judicial Research Institute at the the Supreme People’s Court.

Professor Matti Nojonen, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Finnish China Law Center, also spoke.

Registration for the event was not compulsory. For those students who wished to gain 2 ECTS upon the attendance of the whole event, the event organized requested registration by 8 November.

The full program and list of speakers, as well as details on student registration, was available on the website of the University of Lapland.

University of Lapland (Photo credit: University of Lapland).

About the conference:

According to the latest figures from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), China filed the most patents of any country worldwide in 2015, with Chinese companies registering more than 1.3 million patents, in 2017, an increase of 14.2% per year since 2015. China’s rise as an economy focused on high-quality development, is a substantially significant economic event.

The expanding range of China’s economic interactions has provoked the most recent attention to China as an emerging superpower. China’s economic successes are impressive enough and deserve attention; they reflect China’s late entry into the international community, in organs such as UN and World Bank. Therefore, it is of vital importance to understand China’s role in the international legal system and to examining possible alterations in China’s foreign policy principles, laws and practices.

The seminar focused on different points:

  • Discussion of the ongoing reforms in these Chinese legal landscapes and contextualize and compare them to the ongoing reforms that are occurring in the European legal systems.
  • As Beijing has announced it will take more active role in international affairs, will the China’s traditional conventional role and approach to international law change?