CHINA
China may seem like a tough nut to crack, but it’s slowly opening up to the needs of national and international businesses that want to access its huge population. WIPR talks to Zhipei Jiang, the former chief justice of IP at the Supreme People’s Court, about what’s right and wrong with IP in China.
Until recently, China was seen as a country that guarded its privacy fiercely. Journalists and foreign businesses alike had difficulties gaining access. But while there is still a way to go, things are changing, and Chinese intellectual property law is a good indicator of how the country is opening up to the outside world.
On the IP front, China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) regularly reports official and local news in Chinese and English. Unofficial sources also exist, making an increasingly important country such as China more transparent to those that are interested in IP.
Dr Zhipei Jiang, the former chief justice of the IPR Tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court Fangda Partners, established
www.chinaiprlaw.cn in 1999. He wanted to make China’s IP judicial protection more transparent and provide a platform for the exchange of ideas. “It’s one of the earliest legal academic websites in China and the amount of visits has numbered at around 3 million,” he says.
State of play
Jiang has been involved in judicial work since 1979, and became an IP judge in the early 1980s. He says: “I took part in the legislation on Copyright Law, Patent Law, Trademark Law and IP Customs Regulation, as well as judicial interpretations on issues such as copyrights, patents, trademarks, technology contracts and IP crimes.”
Te development of Chinese IP law has paralleled Jiang’s career, allowing him to witness its growth first-hand. “Te last three decades mark a period of continuous development for China’s IP protection system, which has grown from scratch,” he says. “During that time, China set up a fully-fledged legal framework and operational system for IP protection that is compatible with domestic development needs and consistent with international rules.”
IP law in China is yet to provide an adequate solution to the country’s national piracy and counterfeiting problem. Tis problem is becoming more serious as China’s economy continues to grow. IP owners see China as an attractive jurisdiction in which to do business, but may be put off by the high probability that their intellectual property will be stolen for the profit of others.
Jiang agrees that IP infringement in China is serious, yet it mustn’t be taken out of context. “[T]he crime of IP infringement is quite serious and rampant in certain areas and sectors, especially [when you look] at the aggregates,” he says. “However, measurements that show that China is the leading violator do not take its size into account. When the population is taken into account, China’s IP violation rates are much lower than those of many other countries, including the US.”
www.worldipreview.com
World Intellectual Property Review May/June 2011
17
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