Visiting French Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade Francois Loos said in Beijing Monday that France is willing to establish a Chinese-French joint committee on intellectual property protection.  

He said the French National Institute of Industrial Property is scheduled to discuss possibility of establishing such a committee with China's State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO).

At a Sino-French symposium on intellectual property, which was held Monday, Loos said that representatives from French and Chinese businesses and guilds will be invited to join the proposed committee.

Wang Jingchuan, SIPO commissioner, said at the symposium that France has rich experience in stimulating industrialization of new technologies, improving public awareness of intellectual property and enforcing laws effectively.

Bilateral cooperation and exchange in intellectual property will benefit both countries, Wang said.

Li Dongsheng, vice director of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, said China and France have already set up a joint work group for trademark affairs, which has convened 17 times in the past two decades.

China and France signed a cooperation treaty on intellectual property in 1998.

(Xinhua News Agency April 12, 2005)