非常感谢陈副市长、宗副秘书长以及复旦大学的各位老师们、同学们、朋友们。我对复旦这一知名学府授予我名誉教授而深感荣幸，成为复旦一员让我倍感自豪，我向你们致以最诚挚的谢意！

我的发言主题是知识产权。就我所知，复旦大学一直以来高度重视知识产权教学与研究。当今世界正经历风云巨变，知识产权领域也不能例外。特别是当我们回望过去十年，可以看到三点趋势贯穿始终。

首先，世界范围内的知识产权需求正以世界经济的至少两倍速增长：全球常规经济增幅约为3.5%，知识产权需求增幅则达到了8～10%。这也是当下知识经济指标的缩影。而中国正是促成这一现象的最主要推动力之一。大家也知道，中国目前拥有世界上最大的专利、商标和设计局，且即将拥有最大的植物新品种和植物育种者权利局，当然，还将拥有极具影响力和重要性的创新产业。

从中国的领先地位我们可以看出第二点更为普遍的变化趋势：知识产权的地理分布在过去十年已彻底改变。如今世界上60%的知识产权来源于亚洲，涵盖商标、设计和植物育种者权利等各领域。这与经济产品的地理变化趋势相一致，而经济产品的地理变化趋势正是未来科技产品演化方向的重要指针。

第三点趋势是知识产权制度的复杂化，这一方面是由全球化所导致，另一方面也是由技术社会的本质特点所决定。复杂性尤其体现于以下两个层面。一是知识产权的体系构建。就在几十年前，与知识产权有关的活动还只是在国内层面展开；25年前，知识产权活动虽在国内和国际层面开展，但所谓国际层面，也就是世界知识产权组织而已。如今，国内、双边、三边、区域和多边层面的知识产权动态日趋活跃。在多边层面，世界知识产权组织、世界贸易组织、世界卫生组织及许多宗旨各异的国际组织均涉足知识产权申请，这是因为知识产权问题覆盖面极广。在知识产权体系建构这一新语境下，体系的协调性是亟待面对的现实问题，需要通过加强知识产权学术研究得以实现。二是知识产权的实质内容。比如，生命科学的发展带来了许多问题，信息技术尤其是人工智能亦是如此。也许在将来，信息技术和人工智能领域会需要新的知识产权种类和制度设计。此处涉及许多更深层的课题，遗憾的是，我们无暇探讨。但毫无疑问，这一变化将成为未来世界的决定因子。

有评论指出，现有知识产权体系是工业革命的产物，而这一体系终将被取代。在我看来，这一观点缺乏论据支持。证据表明，对于已有知识产权的需求仍处于加速增长中。但现有体系也的确面临着一些问题。以数据的法律地位为例，每所大学都有许多科研人员不断产生大量数据，如生命科学研究所生成的有关数据。这些数据并不构成传统意义上的发明，却自有其价值。我们迫切需要大学和学者的协助以创设出适用于数据的新体系。其中涉及多个层面，如数据完整性、数据安全性、全球竞争法、与数据有关的财产权等。我认为看待这些知识产权新需求的应有思路是：它们会构成对现有制度的补充，但无法替代或取代现有制度。只要我们的物质世界依然存在，传统的知识产权体系就仍然重要。而全新的数字世界可能会需要一套全新的知识产权制度。

最后我想说，成为复旦一员实在是我的荣幸，成为中国优秀教育系统的一员也是我的荣幸。我万分期待继续推进与复旦的关系，你们的大学显然为知识产权做出了重要贡献。谢谢大家！

Thank you very much, Vice Mayor Chen, Deputy Secretary General Zong. Thank you very much also, distinguished faculty members, students and friends. Let me say it is a real honor and a deep privilege to be honored in this room, such a distinguished University as Fudan University. I am extremely proud to be joining your university and I really thank you very much for this honor!

And let me say a few words about intellectual property. I know that Fudan University has put great importance on intellectual property, the teaching and research of intellectual property. Like most things in this world now, the intellectual property field has been subject to tumultuous change, I have to say. In particular, we may look back into the past 10 years, we see three trends which are rather persistent.

The first of all is the demand worldwide for intellectual property rights has been increasing at a rate which is about twice, if not more, the rate of the increase of world economy. So, if you like a small measure of the indicator of the knowledge economy, because we have the normal economy increasing at roughly 3.5% worldwide and intellectual property rights demand increasing by 8, 9, 10%. One of the most important drives of that increasing demand is China. As you all are very much aware, China has now the largest patent office, largest trademark office, largest design office, soon the largest plant variety, plant breeders’ rights office in the world and of course, the extraordinarily influential, important creative industries.

The important leadership of China leads to the more general point which is, we see the second persistent trend, that the geography of intellectual property has completely changed during last 10 years. Asia is now the source of approximately 60% of all the intellectual property applications worldwide across trademarks, designs, and plant breeders’ rights. This is in line with the changing geographic trends, changing economic production that is an important indicator of the future that technology production now is set to evolve.

The third trend is complexity. Complexity is a result in part of globalization, but also the nature of a technological society. We see in complexity two dimensions in particular. I think the first is the architecture of intellectual property. If we consider the world just several decades ago, you would have had activities of intellectual property at the national level, and 25 years ago, at the national level and the international level. The international level is namely just the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Now of course you have very active agendas nationally, bilaterally, trilaterally, regionally and multilaterally. Multilaterally you have the WIPO, WTO, the WHO is very interested in intellectual property applications and a lot of different international organizations because intellectual property is a horizontal issue. Now in this new world which is now the architecture of intellectual property, I think coherence is a real question for the future. This underlies the importance of the academic study of intellectual property to give coherence. The other dimension of complexity is of course the substance of intellectual property. There are many questions raised by the life sciences for example, also by information technology and in particular, artificial intelligence. In the field of IT and artificial intelligence, I think that probably in the future, we will need new intellectual property rights and designs. There are many profound questions here, we don’t have the time to discuss them, unfortunately. But it is going to be a determiner of the world tomorrow, there is no doubt.

There are some commentators who say that the existing intellectual property system is product of the industrial revolution and will be replaced by a new intellectual property system in the future. I actually think that the evidence does not support that view. The evidence is that demand is increasing for the existing intellectual property rights at a very high rate. However, there are many questions. For example, the status of data. Many scientists in each university are producing large amounts of data, for example, in life sciences, which don’t constitute any invention in the classical sense but which are nevertheless valuable. We are in desperate need of the assistance of the universities and professors to think out the new framework that is going to apply to data. There are multiple dimensions that need to say. There is the question of the integrity of data, there is the question of the security of data, there is the question of competition law worldwide, there is the question of property rights in relation to data and there are yet other dimensions. So, just two final comments. I think the way to consider these new needs for intellectual property rights is that they will constitute an additional layer rather than a substituting, rather than a replacement layer. For as long as we have some physical existence, then the classical system of intellectual property will remain important. But for new symbolic world, new set of rights will be needed.

I shall end on that point, but just to say, it really is an honor to be part of this university. And it’s also an honor to be part of the fantastic educational system of China. I look very much forward to the relationship with Fudan University. I think in intellectual property, clearly you made a major contribution by your university. Thank you very much!