Jon Dudas, Acting Director of the USPTO, recently returned from a trip to China with Commerce Secretary Don Evans. Their mission was to “urge China to ratify and implement the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties in the near terms, provide draft criminal judicial interpretations to the United States for review and facilitate enforcement against end user software piracy by declaring that it harms the public interest.”
Dudas commented:
[The] message to the Chinese about the importance of IP protection provided a strong impetus for the productive discussions we had. Thanks to the leadership of Secretary Evans, I believe we made solid progress and have forged new cooperatives ties with China in the area of intellectual property protection and enforcement.
Later this year, former Patent Office Director Q. Todd Dickinson will lead a delegation of professionals specializing in intellectual property law and public policy to china to participate in bilateral exchanges with their professional counterparts in China, under the auspices of People to People Ambassador Programs. I was honored to be nominated for the delegation; unfortunately I have a previously scheduled commitment.