China's intellectual property rights (IPR) authorities Saturday vowed to play a larger role in the global cause of IPR protection while being more responsible to innovators and the public.

The State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) Director Tian Lipu made the pledge at a press conference held to recognize the 25th anniversary of Sino-EU cooperation on IPR protection.

Tian said that China and the EU, as two major economies with close trade relations, should further co-operate to create a better environment to encourage and protect innovation in the business world.

At the event, European Patent Office (EPO) President Benoit Battistelli told Xinhua he was optimistic about the future of IPR protection in China, given the rapid progress being made in the country.

Battistelli said relations between the EPO and the SIPO would "continue to be decisive for the successful future development of the patent system on a global level."

Commemorations of the anniversary, held at the ongoing Shanghai World Expo, also included a demonstration of a real-world IPR enforcement case in a moot court setting.

The EPO started cooperating with China in 1985. The two sides are currently implementing the EU-China IPR2 project utilizing a 16 million Euros budget that runs over four years to 2011.

Both the EPO and the SIPO are among the world's five largest patent offices, together with the Japan Patent Office, the Korean IP Office, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

China has also grown into one of the most important non-EU countries filing patent applications to the EPO, with the number of patents submitted increasing from 163 in 2000 to 1,621 in 2009.