Heads of the State Intellectual Property Office and the European Patent Office had their seventh meeting late last month in Beijing to renew their commitment to supporting innovation globally.

During the meeting, SIPO Commissioner Tian Lipu and EPO President Benoit Battistelli signed an agreement to bring an annual work plan into effect that includes several joint projects in 2014.

Also, the Chinese side will start to use the latest version of EPO's patent search engine next year, according to the agreement.