Sino-European Institute for Intellectual Property (SEIIP) is affiliated to Huazhong University of Science and Technology and is based on the Chinese-German Institute for Intellectual Property, School of Management. SEIIP is mainly engaged in intellectual property theory and applied research and cultivates multi-level composite intellectual property professionals with international vision and local sentiment. At the same time, the institute has also selectively accepted projects from key industries and government departments to carry out IP strategic planning and decision-making consultation services, applying the research results to social services. "International" and "Practical" are the two major development characteristics that the Institute insists on. The institute actively conducts close exchanges with the intellectual property teaching and research institutions of many excellent universities and research institutes, deeply studying the characteristic intellectual property system of western countries, and strives to construct international, interdisciplinary, and joint scientific research platforms on intellectual property. Meanwhile, the institute introduces the Chinese IP regime to other countries through comparative research, actively promoting cooperation with high-quality universities and research institutes through international cooperation research projects, the exchanging of famous experts, student exchanging and joint seminars, the service of Sino-European and Sino-US scientific and technological innovation and technology transfer cooperation projects, and international conferences.
Since 1999, Prof. Yu Xiang, the Institute Director, has gradually built academic relationships with MPI, - the Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law (now: The Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition), and the Faculty of Law, University of Munich (LMU). Based on that, the Chinese-German Institute for Intellectual Property was established on January 25th, 2005, supported by outstanding German scholars, especially Prof. Joseph Straus, the Managing Director of MPI at the time. In September 2016, with the support of the Ministry of Education's Double-First-Class Construction Funds, the university approved the “Sino-European Institute for Intellectual Property at HUST” project. With the support of the China National Intellectual Property Administration and the Hubei Provincial Government, the Institute signed a series of agreements with many well-known intellectual property institutions in Europe to jointly establish the China-EU IP Research Institute, which was officially unveiled on March 20, 2018, aiming to create a broader international cooperation platform for intellectual property professionals training, joint research, and promotion of technology licensing applications, and to contribute to the expansion of China's intellectual property international cooperation for the Belt and Road. The Institute has always been working extensively with European universities, research institutes, and intellectual property practice departments. Such as carrying out intellectual property research and professional training cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (Germany), the Technical University of Munich (Germany), LMU (Germany), the University of Strasbourg (France), the University of Alicante (Spain), Jagiellonian University (Poland), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich, Switzerland), Zurich University of Applied Sciences (Switzerland), the European Patent Office (EPO), the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (Germany), University of Vienna (Austria), SRH University Heidelberg, etc.
There are 3 professors (all doctoral supervisors), 1 associate professor, 1 lecturer, 1 postdoctoral researcher, and more than 20 research members. The main members of the institute have successively assumed responsibility for a number of international-cooperation projects, such as the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center for Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Promotion Project, "Intellectual Property Management and Product Marketing in International Trade," and "Patent Strategy-Oriented Enterprise Technology Innovation Mechanism Research." Also, SEIIP has taken research projects from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Social Science Foundation Projects, the Ministry of Science and Technology, or the National Intellectual Property Administration, and local government, as well as a series of intellectual property strategy-supported enterprises commissioned by enterprises from multiple industries. The Institute members have also published a series of influential academic papers and books in English, German, Japanese, and Chinese.
Since the establishment of SEIIP in 2005, it has conducted cooperative projects including teacher exchange and course exchange, student exchange, and joint research based on cooperation with excellent intellectual property research and education in Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Poland, Austria, the United States, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Up to the present time, nearly 50 doctoral students and over 100 master students graduated from SEIIP, who are competing to be introduced by universities, well-known enterprises, intellectual property management, and judicial departments. SEIIP has sent a group of postgraduate students to the Max Planck Institute of Intellectual Property, the University of Munich to take exchange studies for 6-12 months. It has also received international students from several countries for postdoctoral research, Ph.D., and master's degrees in intellectual property.
Website: http://patent.hust.edu.cn/
