Intellectual Property Rights In China Research Articles

Mediating Foreign Norms and Local Imperatives – Intellectual Property ‘Law’ as between the East and the West: From Imperial to ‘Modern’

China is recognized as one of the oldest continuous civilizations in the world and its economic and technological development has, arguably, been a world forerunner for a number of centuries. This article explores the motivation behind protection of property rights in the East, with a focus on imperial China (i.e. 221 BC to AD 1911) followed by efforts in China to regulate the reproduction of literary, innovation and creation prior to the 20th century, which highlight neither a formal or an informal counterpart to major forms of intellectual property (i.e. including copyright, patents and trademarks). While there exists scholarly work concerning intellectual property rights in select countries in the East, this paper takes the view that the recognition of intellectual property and indeed its regulation in China appears to have been curtailed (a view quite distinct to advanced) by both institutional and cultural factors. An understanding of this back-drop is paramount in forming an appreciation of the dynamics not only in the rather gradual implementation of intellectual property rights in China, but also increased trade relations between China and the West.

Martin K. Dimitrov, Piracy and the State: The Politics of Intellectual Property Rights in China

Martin K. Dimitrov, Piracy and the State: The Politics of Intellectual Property Rights in China

Analysis of Factors and Countermeasures on Intellectual Property Friction in China's Foreign Trade

In recent years, trade friction related with intellectual property rights in China's foreign trade get increasingly prominent, which is a huge challenge for China. In this article, we will firstly analyze the status of intellectual property friction of China's foreign trade, secondly analyze the China's factors of Chinese foreign trade friction relating to intellectual property rights, and finally put forward strategies on how to tackle intellectual property rights friction from the perspectives of government and enterprises respectively.

Analysis of Factors and Countermeasures on Intellectual Property Friction in China's Foreign Trade

In recent years, trade friction related with intellectual property rights in China's foreign trade get increasingly prominent, which is a huge challenge for China. In this article, we will firstly analyze the status of intellectual property friction of China's foreign trade, secondly analyze the China's factors of Chinese foreign trade friction relating to intellectual property rights, and finally put forward strategies on how to tackle intellectual property rights friction from the perspectives of government and enterprises respectively.

The Criminal Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights in China: Recent Developments and Implications

This article systematically introduces and analyzes a number of aspects of the criminal enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR) in China, focusing on recent trends and developments. China has been under tremendous pressure from the US to expand the criminalization of its IP infringement. The article first summarizes the substantive criminal law regarding IP offenses in China and describes the main enforcement agencies and judicial organs responsible for the investigation and processing of IP crimes. Analysis of the substantive criminal IP law and enforcement practices shows a steady pattern of rapid criminalization, not only on the books but also in action. Newly promulgated judicial interpretations and notices substantially expand criminalization of IP infringements. In addition, the enforcement rates of IP and related crimes have been rising consistently and rapidly. There have also been numerous joint meetings, information exchanges, issuance of provisions, collaborative “strike-hard” enforcement campaigns and other major efforts initiated by the police, the prosecutors, and administrative agencies to facilitate agency cooperation and strengthen the criminal enforcement of IPR. However, accompanying this rapid criminalization of IP infringement control are serious problems rooted in the Chinese criminal judicial system, including local protectionism, the lack of respect for procedural justice as well as the protection of defendants’ basic rights, and inadequate training, professional incompetence, misconduct, or corruption.

Sino-US disputes over “criminal threshold” of intellectual property rights

In April 2007, the United States filed an application with the DSB of WTO with respect to the issue of criminal law protection mechanism of intellectual property rights in China, which was the first dispute accepted by the DSB arising out of the issue of criminal law protection mechanism of intellectual property rights. The core of the dispute of the case is how to interpret the “commercial scale” under Article 61 of the TRIPS Agreement as the “criminal threshold”. It can be seen from the practice of the interpretation of the DSB that while each WTO member is entitled to interpret the term “commercial scale”, the boundary of interpretation is subject to Article 61 of the TRIPS Agreement. It is unnecessary for China to lower her “criminal threshold”, since China’s criminal law protection in intellectual property policy is in compliance with the TRIPS Agreement. In fact, the United States should change from lowering the criminal threshold to how to strengthen the criminal crackdown on piracy under the circumstance of lowering the price of genuine works when imposing pressure on China in the protection of intellectual property rights.

TNCs and Intellectual Property Rights in China

This note discusses intellectual property rights in China. The note argues that the Chinese people, their history and culture, and their ideas about the ownership of knowledge determine the way they treat intellectual property. At China’s current level of economic development, its people have begun to have respect for Western laws on intellectual property. At future levels of economic development, they may adopt a different approach to the issue.

Intellectual Property Game between China and USA: A Law and Economic Analysis of the WTO Case

On 10 April, 2007, the United States requested consultations with China through DSB of WTO concerning certain measures pertaining to the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in China. The focus of this thesis is on the first argument of USTR about the thresholds for Criminal procedures and penalties. USTR argues that China lacks effective criminal deterrence and certain provisions of Chinese law allegedly create a safe harbor for wholesalers and retailers to avoid criminal liability. This paper tries to make an interpretation of certain TRIPS Agreement provisions' terms from law and economic perspectives, discuss whether IP enforcement needs criminal law, whether threshold is needed and what the optimal IP enforcement is.

Institutionalization of intellectual property rights in China

Institutional field Summary Following the 1978 political and economic reforms, China has undergone a sig-nificant transformation on the intellectual property rights (IPR) front. In this paper, we use neo-institutional theory to examine the institutionalization of IPR in China. Specifically, we examine the perceptions of national elites and the public regarding IPR as well as IPR related pressures facing these actors, their negotiation with other actors and their responses. Regulative, normative and cognitive institutions formed around the IPR field in China are analyzed.

Time to play Catch-Up

Time to play Catch-Up

Between Chinese culture and the rule of law

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine aspects of the social, cultural, political and legal architecture of intellectual property rights (IPR) in China. The paper aims to identify inhibiting and facilitating factors in the Chinese environment as they pertain to establishing of a workable regime for IPR in China. The paper also offers some practical strategies that foreign managers can employ to reduce the risk of piracy of intellectual property (IP) in China.Design/methodology/approach – A literature review of the main influences on the formation of Chinese attitudes to IPR are identified and discussed. Against this background, a model for the establishment of a new regime for IPR in China is proposed.Findings – While the cultural architecture of IPR in China is often identified as the major influence on the level of IP piracy, other aspects of the Chinese political, business and social environment may actually facilitate the acceptance of, and respect for, IPR. Indeed, the experience of Taiwan...

Intellectual Property Rights in China: The Changing Political Economy of Chinese–American Interests

We review the evolution of modern Chinese intellectual property right (IPR) laws and enforcement and explore economic and political forces involved in international conflicts over Chinese IPR protection. Our analysis considers why the US and China moved from conflict to cooperation over intellectual property rights. Structural and institutional aspects of the political economy of IPRs within each country are considered, and data on Chinese‐US trade in intellectual property‐intensive goods are examined. We conclude that although enforcement of IPRs within China continues to be relatively weak, Chinese IPR institutions are converging on those in the OECD nations.

The Judicial Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights in China

The Judicial Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights in China

Technology transfer to China: a study of strategy in 20 EU industrial companies

Foreign direct investment has been important in China's economic development since the early 1980s. In recent years, the volume of inward FDI into China, according to some estimates, has been second only to that into the USA. The Chinese government has emphasised the need for FDI to be coupled with the transfer of more advanced technologies to China. For foreign companies, technology transfer raises the risk of losing their technology based competitive advantage to potential competitor firms. This risk may be exacerbated by insufficient legal protection of intellectual property rights in China. After briefly reviewing the development of Chinese official policy on technology transfer, this paper considers the strategy adopted by EU companies regarding the transfer of technology; in particular in advanced technology sectors. The research on which the paper is based included an analysis of information gathered from 20 leading EU companies with investments in China and operating in high-technology sectors. Information was gathered from senior company managers based in both China and Europe during the second half of 1998. The main findings include a measure of reluctance on the part of EU companies to transfer their core technologies to China and to base R&D capability there. At the same time, the companies appear aware that this policy may be unsustainable in the longer-term in the face of Chinese official policy and a desire to expand their operations in China. While they attempt to protect their existing technological knowledge, most of them accept that there will be technology "leakage" and therefore the most effective strategy is to maintain their technological lead through R&D.

To Steal a Book Is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization (review)

REVIEWS William P. Alford. To Steal a Book Is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995. 220 pp. Hardcover, isbn 0-8047-2270-6. William Alford offers in this short (123 pages oftext) but densely written book an overview of intellectual property law and practice in China (including Taiwan) from the Qin dynasty to the present. The outcome is a very readable, informative, and yet surprisingly nuanced account ofintellectual property law in Chinese civilization that is likely to appeal to academicians as well as legal practitioners seeking to situate the existing blackletter law within the broad sweep of Chinese history . That Alford is able to traverse the two-millennia course ofintellectual property law in China in a mere 123 pages is due not only to his concise writing style. The fact that "imperial China did not develop a sustained indigenous counterpart to intellectual property law" also makes the task somewhat more manageable (p. 2). The book is organized chronologically. After an introductory chapter, chapter 2 covers the period from the Qin to the Qing, chapter 3 the period from the late Qing to the victory ofthe communists, and chapter 4 the socialist period. Chapter 5 is devoted to the struggle to develop intellectual property law in Taiwan . Chapter 6 concludes with an analysis of and comments on U.S. intellectual property policy in China. The opening chapter provides an introduction to each of the following chapters and a summary offour main theses. First, imperial China did not develop a sustained counterpart to Western intellectual property law due in large part to "the character ofChinese political culture" (p. 2). Second, Europeans and Americans failed in their initial attempts to introduce Western intellectual property law to China because they did not consider the relevance ofsuch laws to China and mistakenly assumed that political pressure alone would suffice to compel adoption ofand compliance with such laws. Third, current attempts to establish intellectual property law, particularly on the mainland, similarly fail "to address the difficulties ofreconciling legal values, institutions, and forms generated in the West with the legacy of China's past and the constraints imposed by its present© 1997 by University circumstances" (p. 2). Finally, U.S. policyregardingintellectualpropertylawin ofHawai'iPressthe PRC and Taiwan is "based on fundamental misconceptions about the nature oflegal development and is therefore in need of major reformulation" (p. 2). 56 China Review International: Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1997 Alford is aware that these are large and controversial claims. Accordingly, he tacks on to the end of the introduction an extended list of the difficulties encountered in writing on intellectual property rights in China and a series of qualifications with respect to the nature, methodology, and data ofthe study. Two qualifications are particularly noteworthy. First, differences in political culture lie at the heart ofAlford's analysis ofthe divergent paths of intellectual property law in the West and China. Yet Alford is keenly aware that cultural explanations do not readily lend themselves to hard proof. He also notes that caution must be exercised when relying on cultural explanations given that China, over the course of the more than two thousand years in question, was far from culturally monolithic . Second, care must be taken to avoid the assumption that contemporary Western intellectual property law and practice represents the norm or some normatively and culturally neutral standard for all countries to aspire to. Before we Americans jump on our soapboxes, we would do well to remember that although the scope ofprotection afforded by intellectual property law in the U.S. has broadened over time, it remains subject to certain limitations (such as the seventeen -year limit on patents and the public's right offair use ofcopyright materials ). Furthermore, compliance with such laws is far from perfect. Even wealthy Americans (relatively speaking) have been known to make copies of cassette tapes or CDs or, heaven forbid, to buy pirated CDs sold on the streets of Beijing. In the second chapter, Alford argues that while the state in premodern China sought to control the unauthorized reproduction of texts, the purpose was to sustain imperial power by controlling the dissemination ofideas. In short, the state was acting as...