To mark the 30th anniversary of the cooperation between the State intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) and European Patent Office (EPO), several activities have taken place in Beijing, for instance, the meeting between Chinese State Councilor Wang Yong and EPO President Beno?t Battistelli, an International Symposium on IP, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the 9th Conference of Heads of Offices, etc. The warmth and enthusiasm from this profound friendship between the two Offices forged in 30-year's time has made this winter feel like spring.
 

"The 30th anniversary of the cooperative relationship between SIPO and EPO is another milestone in the history of the two Offices," said SIPO Commissioner Shen Changyu in his speech, he highly valued the achievements the two offices have made in the past three decades. He said, though China and Europe are located at opposite ends of Eurasia, they are still called "far-away neighbours". After thirty years of cooperation, SIPO and EPO have become important strategic partners to each other; and remarkable achievements have been scored and deep friendship established.
 

"This is a special year for EPO and SIPO. The year 2015 marks the 30th anniversary of constructive co-operation between our two Offices and it is another milestone in the constant development of a special cooperative relationship," said Beno?t Battistelli, his warm speech perfectly echoed Commissioner Shen's remark.
 

Beyond doubt, the bilateral cooperation is not only beneficial to the two Offices, but also to the world at large. Thirty years ago, at the initial stage of SIPO, it was EPO who extended a helping hand, with which, the construction of Chinese patent system stepped out and developed from a relatively high level. In the past 30 years, the cooperation between the two offices has been expanded in many aspects. For instance, with the bilateral cooperation on search tools, the Chinese patent examiners got rid of manual search. Furthermore, the two sides have carried out other fruitful cooperation in fields of personnel training, patent documentation, machine translation, Cooperative Patent Classification, global dossier, etc. Meanwhile, the cooperation between the two Offices under the framework of WIPO and IP5, has effectively boosted the development and progress of the international IP system. Due to the continuous efforts of the two Offices, millions of patent documents written in Chinese and English are now available for access by engineers, inventors and scientists worldwide, in particular providing great convenience to industries, innovators and the general public from China and Europe.
 

Over the past three decades, leaders of SIPO and EPO have made outstanding contributions to establishment and deepening of the bilateral cooperation It was their wisdom and diligence that have shaped today's cooperative relationship between the two Offices and their names should be remembered by the history, such as SIPO's former Commissioners Wu Heng, Huang Kunyi, Gao Lulin, Jiang Ying, Wang Jingchuan, Tian Lipu and EPO's former Presidents Bob van Benthem, Paul Braendli, Ingo Kober，Alain Pompidou，Alison Brimelow, etc.
 

As a Chinese saying goes, "Distance can not separate true friends who feel so close even when they are thousands of miles apart", due to continuous efforts of the leaders from China and Europe, SINO-European relationship has continued to deepen, which has provided new opportunities and now driving force for the cooperation between SIPO and EPO. "As long as we continue to work as hard as we always do, our cooperation will have a promising future; as long as we make progress together, it will contribute to grow. Let's join our hands together to create a brighter future." said Shen Changyu.