China Becoming Intellectual Property Powerhouse

eldavojohn writes "A lot of Westerners view China as little more than the world's factory manufacturing anything with little regard to patents, copyrights and trademarks. But it seems as far as patents go, China is moving on up. According to the WIPO, the company that applied for the most patents in 2008 was not an American or Japanese company but China's Huawei Technologies. And China has made astonishing ground recently moving up to third place with 203,257 patent applications behind Japan (500,000) and the United States (390,000). It remains to be seen if these patents applications will come to fruition for China but it is evident that they are focusing on a new image as a leader in research and development. The Korean article concentrates on 2008 but you can find 2009 statistics at the WIPO's report on China along with some statistics breaking down applications by industry."

Comments

This ought to be good.

[Penguinisto]

I wonder how long it will be until "intellectual property" lawyers start complaining about their cases being outsourced?

Re:This ought to be good.

[c0lo]

Perhaps those lawyer will start forming some lobby groups?
I wonder how long 'til US will become the strongest opponent to ACTA?

Re:This ought to be good.

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

Oh man, you mean lawyers can be made cheaper overseas? I smell money...

Re:This ought to be good.

[Anonymous Coward]

And have you noticed that there is no intellectual property protection for legal arguments and tactics? Someone could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of lawyer time to develop a new innovative legal defense, and then someone else can apply the same defense without paying a dime to the first party! Where's the incentive to innovate? Why is the patent establishment, the congress (largely composed of lawyers) and the lobbying industry working on IP protections for other industries while so blatantly ignoring their own profession?

This is good news

[Noughmad]

Perhaps now the Americans will want to eliminate unreasonable patents.

Do they even care over there?

[danomac]

Given that there's massive infringement over there (not just software or entertainment, physical as well) does that mean that they might actually start enforcing IP rights?

That'll be interesting to see.

Re:Do they even care over there?

[CyprusBlue113]

They don't have to, it sure helps China for the rest of the world to care though.

Re:Do they even care over there?

[malkavian]

Given 50 years or so, maybe.
The USA was built in this fashion; it lifted designs, works and all kinds of "Intellectual Property" from Europe, and used it as it wished. Unsurprisingly, unencumbered by restrictive laws, it grew fast in the intellectual works arena, at which point people (the ones who'd made a profit this way) wanted to keep things as they were, and so lobbied for ever more restrictive legislation to ensure nobody could get a slice of their pie.
And now, another country starts doing exactly this, and unsurprisingly, starts racing onwards, catching up fast.
The difference in this is that with China, the State rules all. There aren't these pesky wildcard businessmen who can lobby all the time. Yes, there's corruption, but if it's uncovered and exposed to sight, the reprisals are nothing other than draconian.
The State can, and will, modify its IP laws to best support the growth of the country, rather than the growth of an individual company; that's where it could very easily steal a march on the west.

Re:Do they even care over there?

[alchemy101]

One of my lecturers Dr. Stephen Morgan pointed out that while certainly there was a lot of bootlegging of Western companies' products by chinese companies the amount pales in comparison to the bootlegging of chinese companies' products by other chinese companies.

Re:Do they even care over there?

[westlake]

Unsurprisingly, unencumbered by restrictive laws, it grew fast in the intellectual works arena, at which point people (the ones who'd made a profit this way) wanted to keep things as they were, and so lobbied for ever more restrictive legislation to ensure nobody could get a slice of their pie

The US remained predominately rural and agricultural until 1860.

That is 250 years out from the Jamestown Settlement.

In 1790 the U.S. produced 3,000 bales of cotton.

In 1860, 3.8 million.

In 1860 six manufactuers controlled 50% of the total cotton gin market.

The cotton gin had become big business, a factory made, not craftsman product.

In 1820, Eli Whitney's patents, newly minted and with the industrial tech needed to back them up would have been a license to print money. Cotton Gin

The American railroad was financed in London.

The American railroad could be a marvel of improvisation. But the Amercan railroad was notoriously slow in adopting new tech.

THE GREAT RAIL WRECK AT REVERE, "ST. GEORGE" WESTINGHOUSE

The by then wholly constipated and inadequate American railroad system was nationalized in World War One - an $18 billion dollar industry re-organized and modernized by government fiat. USRA Light Mikado

Not everyone regarded trafficking in patent rights with equanimity. The scientist Joseph Henry, for example, refused as a matter of principle to patent any of his inventions, proclaiming that they had been "freely given" to the world, and sought, instead of pecuniary reward, the pleasure of discovering new truths, the satisfaction of advancing science, and the enjoyment of the "scientific reputation" to which his discoveries entitled him.

In contrast, the telegraph business evolved through patents, of which the most important were the patents that Morse had obtained in 1840 (the use of electricity to transmit signals over long distances) and 1846 (an electromagnetic relay).

Beginning in 1836, the patent office began once again to examine each filing to determine not only whether the submission had merit but also whether it infringed on any other patent already issued--thus establishing a filter between the inventor and the legal system and enhancing the value of applications that made it through the mesh by defining the rights of the patent holder. Once certification was required, patent rights became tradable assets that, like land assets or government securities, could be bought or sold. To capitalize on their value, promoters bundled together patents for related inventions into cartels known as "pools." The leading telegraph patents were pooled in 1859; telephone patents were pooled in 1879; radio patents in 1919.

No other government in the world had imposed a comparable requirement up to this time, imparting to Morse's patents a moral authority that set them apart not only from the patents issued to Americans before 1836, but also from those issued by Great Britain and France. The transformation of the U.S. Patent Office reinforced the seductive yet still controversial notion that self-interest could spur the technical advances that would foster moral progress. This syllogism received a classic formulation in 1859 when, in a popular lecture on "discoveries and inventions," the Illinois lawyer, patent holder, and politician Abraham Lincoln praised the country's patent laws for ensuring that the "fuel of interest" would stoke the "fire of genius."

The significance of Morse's invention was not only practical but also symbolic. Morse had been born and educated in the United States, a country not then known for scientific attainment, especially in a highly technical field such

Re:Do they even care over there?

[Zak3056]

Given that there's massive infringement over there (not just software or entertainment, physical as well) does that mean that they might actually start enforcing IP rights?

I doubt they'll be enforced in China... but I have no doubt that they will be enforced in the west, against western companies.

Re:Do they even care over there?

[khchung]

does that mean that they might actually start enforcing IP rights?

Why? Wouldn't it be easier to just apply patents in the US and sue US companies for profit? Who cares about enforcing IP rights back home, those companies back home have no money to sue for anyway.

I think we found step 2

[bersl2]

1. Disregard foreign patents
2. Acquire patents for use against foreign firms
3. PROFIT!

Re:I think we found step 2

[DukeLinux]

The US Government would be more than happy to let the Chinese come in and sue us back into the dark ages. Try suing in China. They are at least smart enough to tell the foreigners to drop dead.

Re:I think we found step 2

[EEPROMS]

You may laugh but America did the exact same thing when they were industrializing, many European companies complained about American companies ignoring copyright and patents. It was only after the US started inventing their own unique designs that they started enforcing IP rights. China has reached that same stage were they are now producing their own unique products so you will see IP right enforced more rigidly. If this is a good or bad thing time will tell, for Europe it didnt work out well as many industries collapsed as more innovative products came out of the USA.

Re:I think we found step 2

[shoehornjob]

That's because we owe them money and we're in their pocket. There was a time though when we could tell everyone to go fuck off and it would stick. I expect we won't be able to do that again till we pay them off.

Re:I think we found step 2

[antifoidulus]

How is this different from any other aspect of Chinese economic policy? Ever listen to Hu Jintao rail against protectionism? Then ever look at Chinese economic policy to see that it is, by FAR, the most protectionist large economy on the planet? Thats pretty par for the course for China.

See the thing about China is that they don't know when to quit. When they were a tiny economy they could get away with a lot of this bullshit but now they are acting like a big kid whose parents never disciplined him. Sure it's cute when he is 7, but now that he is 20 if he keeps this shit up he is going to get into a lot of trouble but he seems blissfully unaware of that fact......

Re:I think we found step 2

[Luckyo]

You pretty much described how USA moved from a rural colony to a technological powerhouse.

Re:I think we found step 2

[antifoidulus]

Lets go back 30 years, you could say the same thing except for %s/China/Japan/g . But Japan never became the supreme economic giant. Why? Because their economy was built on the EXACT same unsustainable economic model that the Chinese economy is built on. Not to mention that I don't really think China's growth is anywhere near what they claim it to be(I don't doubt that they are growing, but probably only half the "official" rate, a rate whose data and calculations are NOT open to outside scrutiny). Within 5 years or so the Chinese economy is going to suffer a major crash due in part to it's belligerence towards its trading partners which it needs a lot more than the CCP likes to admit(though they accidentally admitted it last week when their finance minister said that a 20% increase in the yuan would lead to massive riots, a comment that was quickly rescinded though here in the free world we can still read about it. Good luck reading about it in China)

Re:I think we found step 2

[opposabledumbs]

I doubt that would matter. China has a competitive advantage in the manufacturing side, so unless you can infringe on a patent and beat them out in making whatever, infringing a patent really wouldn't be too much of a big deal.

Of course, this doesn't take into account any software patents. But I guess the lack of worker's rights in China probably make their coding competitive for similar reasons that their manufacturing is.

Re:I think we found step 2

[Anonymous Coward]

When you owe a bank $100,000, you have a problem. When you owe a bank $100,000,000,000, the bank has a problem.

If the U.S. ever decides to default on its loan to China and/or China decides to dump all its monopoly money reserves, China (more specifically, the Chinese government) will be feeling the pain far more than the U.S.

Re:I think we found step 2

[InfiniteZero]

You are off by an order of magnitude. Japan is roughly 1/10th of China in terms of population, and even smaller in landmass. If China follows the exact growth path of Japan as you suggested, its economy will inevitably be 10x of Japan, or roughly 4x of U.S. by today's numbers. If anything, Japan (or for that matter, other smaller Asian powerhouses such as South Korean, Taiwan etc.) are only previews, teaser trailers of what China has to become.

On a side note, if you go back 300 years instead of 30, China was the undisputed top economy in the world. If you look at history, the Chinese people have been incredibly resilient and resourceful. Given a political environment that is relatively stable and conducive to growth, they WILL flourish in short order.

No matter how you look at it, whether we like it or not, the writing's on the wall.

Re:I think we found step 2

[antifoidulus]

You are neglecting to include the part where GDP falls 10x as much as well and all the ramifications of that. Also, 300 years ago China was NOT the top economy in the world, the British Empire most likely was.

You are also neglecting HUGE parts of China's history as well. China has a habit of forming incredibly large empires that crumble apart within the span of less than a decade. It has had very long periods of self-imposed isolation and stagnation.

You also mention demographics in terms of population size but ignore the age structure of Chinese society and the impending societal crisis brought on by the gender imbalance in China. This is already starting to manifest itself, SEVERAL of the kindergarten stabbers wrote about how they could not find a wife and that is what really pushed them over the edge. This is only going to get worse.

You also have 0 idea how China will react when the economy isn't looking so bright, my guess is that it will be a cultural revolution part 2, but who knows. You cannot be an economic superpower that only grows by exporting, eventually there will be blowback and you WILL have to deal with an ecnomy that isn't constantly. China seems prepared for neither.

Face it, China will not be the next economic superpower. India may be(it lacks most of the problems China has, though gender imbalance will be an issue there too) though that remains to be seen but China seems content ignoring the problems its going to inevitably run into and continue on like they don't exist.

Re:I think we found step 2

[rainmouse]

what country in their right mind would respect the patents of China if they continued to disregard everyone elses'?

I see this claim being made repeatedly through the thread but so far these words have been backed up with nothing more than patriotism. Please feel free to cite your sources at any moment.

Re:I think we found step 2

[TheLink]

When you owe a bank $100,000,000,000, the bank has a problem. If the U.S. ever decides to default on its loan to China

It's not even the same problem. Why would the US ever have to default?

The problem is more like: when TheLink owes the bank 2 trillion payable in TheLink tokens, the bank has a problem, not me.

Since I can create as many tokens as I want :).

Think about it more, and you'll see how even more ridiculous the scaremongering about Evil China screwing and holding America to ransom is.

Sure if the USA creates too many trillions out of thin air, people might stop lending them money, but I think they've already created trillions without too many problems (google for: federal reserve trillions).

And that's not really China's fault the US is borrowing trillions etc. You can say they are artificially controlling the price of their currency. But it's relative to the US dollar ;).

If someone is selling stuff too cheap to you, and you are paying them for it with money you borrowed from them, and the debt is payable in money that you can create any time you like, how is that screwing you?

If you somehow screw yourself as a result, it's your own fault.

People can say it's all very complicated finance stuff, but I'm telling the truth as it is :).

Re:I think we found step 2

[drinkypoo]

Lets go back 30 years, you could say the same thing except for %s/China/Japan/g . But Japan never became the supreme economic giant.

Uh, yes it did. It was the world's #1 economic power for a time. Your entire comment is disqualified on this basis.

Why? Because their economy was built on the EXACT same unsustainable economic model that the Chinese economy is built on.

Japan is no longer #1 because economics is bullshit and they were never the most powerful nation on the planet. They did have control of more money than anyone else for a moment, though. The USA is the world's #1 power because we have natural resources and we are not using them up. This will keep us on top for quite some time. The hope is that technology evolves to the point where the raw materials are less relevant before we run out, and the strategy for not running out is to buy everything from China until THEY run out. Historically, empires fall (or at least are severely curtailed) when the natural resources run out. Europe was deforested building ships and they had to go on pause until warships were made of steel, which is what permitted the USA to spin up: resources and the luck of timing. Of course, that lucky advantage has been stretched out time and again, most notably and familiarly with our deliberate late entry into WWII when we most certainly did know that the holocaust was occurring.

Within 5 years or so the Chinese economy is going to suffer a major crash due in part to it's belligerence towards its trading partners which it needs a lot more than the CCP likes to admit

China has always been isolationist and even today has a strong "us and them" mentality. So does almost everyone else, though. Seriously, who but the French doesn't think they're better than everyone else? (Not a dig or joke about the French, either. They have a lower self-opinion than most of the rest of the world, as surveyed. I personally feel this has something to do with introspection. We're all guilty of something.) China's trading partners need China too, though. There's not really an alternative on the horizon, either. There will never be another China.

Re:I think we found step 2

[DriedClexler]

If the US just printed money to pay off China, it would still be fucking itself and its citizens over.

Re:I think we found step 2

[TheLink]

1) They have already printed trillions. As I said in my post, google for: federal reserve trillions.

Example: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=armOzfkwtCA4
And they've been trying to hide it: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-03-19/fed-loses-bid-for-review-of-disclosure-ruling-on-u-s-bank-bailout-records.html

Quote: "Bloomberg has been trying for almost two years to break down a brick wall of secrecy in order to vindicate the public's right to learn basic information," Golden wrote in court filings

So printing money to pay off China wouldn't make a big difference. The US only owes China 2 plus trillion.

2) And even though the US might fuck itself and its citizens by printing trillions, theoretically this is not a necessary/guaranteed result.

When you create money, in effect you are taxing those who already hold net positive amounts of it (whether as cash or as a net creditor). What they hold or are owed becomes worth less.

In Zimbabwe, when Mugabe did that, he and his cronies were basically transferring wealth from the other Zimbabwe citizens to themselves. The rest of the world was mostly unaffected, some even laughed at Zimbabwe.

BUT in the US case, the rest of the world holds trillions of US dollars, and they use it to buy and sell oil, other raw materials and finished goods. So no they won't be laughing.

When the US Gov creates US dollars, the US Gov gets richer, and most of the world living in US's "Zimbabwe" become poorer. If the US Gov doesn't use the created money for the benefit of the US citizens, then yes the US citizens are fucked too. Otherwise, no they aren't fucked - they'd be like Mugabe's cronies, not as rich as Mugabe, but better than the rest of Zimbabwe.

If after a while the rest of the world decide that they are getting screwed more than it's worth, then they will leave the "US Zimbabwe" and use different currencies for trade.

When that happens the US is "fucked" BUT only in relative terms:
Before: the US gets to fuck everyone whenever the US feels like it via the petrodollar.
After: the US doesn't get to fuck everyone else that way anymore.

If the US was doing things right, they would have used their advantageous position to build up a lead that would persist.

If China sells you stuff cheap, and you pay them in borrowed money that you can create trillions of, you're actually in a better situation than China. BUT if you buy cheap toys and trinkets and don't put the savings to good use, then you're wasting that temporary advantage.

The US is holding good cards. What they do with them is another matter.

Re:Probably Stolen

[ThorGod]

I agree. Last I heard, they only enforced IP rights when non-Chinese companies infringed (or appeared to infringe) upon a Chinese company's IP.

Anyone know if China's still doing that? (with references)

Who didn't see this coming?

[Bloodwine]

I remember back when outsourcing and offshorting really started to ramp up and the whole mentality was, "The U.S. will become a nation of intellectual property holders and high-level managers while the rest of the world does the grunt work".

China is known for making knock-offs and stealing intellectual property. If China controls the majority of manufacturing and "grunt" work, then they ultimately have complete access to everything and nothing will really stop them from yanking the rug out from under the idiot outsourcers who didn't see it coming and assumed they could maintain all the power and wealth without doing any of the real work.

Who run Bartertown?

Re:Who didn't see this coming?

[DukeLinux]

The current US and European managers could care less. They are reaping profits for themselves in the here and now. When the stinky stuff hits the fan they will have their money and will cut and run. Just ask Carly Fiorina how well that worked out for her. Too bad she was so mean and nasty not even cancer could kill her.

Re:Who didn't see this coming?

[mattack2]

You presumably mean they COULDN'T care less. Saying the exact opposite of what you mean is a bad way to (try to) communicate.

Re:Who didn't see this coming?

[jimicus]

Maybe he's a US (or European) manager?

Re:Who didn't see this coming?

[DukeLinux]

You are both right. Now let me go dust off that old grammar book from college...

Re:Who didn't see this coming?

[scamper_22]

Anyone who actually believes is in the 'innovation economy' is an idiot. The includes a surprising number of academics for some reason.

Apart from 'stealing' technology, there are a whole host of other reasons.

1. Without low-level work, you won't get good people going into the field in the first place. Just picture yourself as a top 10% high-school kid planning your future career. You can risk becoming and engineer/scientists/entrepreneur who will work their ass off in the rare hope of making it big.... or you can get a 'good' job joining the government or government protected field (legal, medical). That's right... your best and brightest will stop going into the field. Contrast that to say China, where their best and brightest will go into the field. Many won't fulfill their potential... but they'll still have jobs as network administrators, sustaining engineering... It makes sense for them to invest in their field. In 20 years, it will be their best and brightest versus our C students in the R&D field. Not to mention... you know all those brilliant immigrants who seem to make up a large percentage of our grad schools... China and India are both working extra hard to keep their best talent there.

2. You often need to work in an industry to 'innovate'. As more and more functions are moved overseas, they'll be able to innovate on those processes and products that we never get exposure to.

3. China especially has pursued trying to establish its own industry as opposed to just being an outsourcing hub. And as they get 90% of the functionality, they'll get 99% of the sales. Huaweii is a good example. They don't have to get 100% of the functionality or service as Cisco. But most of the world isn't going to pay for that when Huawei can undercut them them. With those sales comes market share, R&D dollars. Before the US and Europe would export a lot of tech to the developing world. Today, any sane developing country is going to choose a Chinese company. Cheaper, most of the functionality...

4. Even if you are able to be innovative, it's not an economy. Maybe if you're a small country of a few million, you can sustain yourself off a few innovative industries (singapore, finland...). But there's not enough innovative wealth to sustain 300 million people. Like it or not the vast majority of jobs are regular work... and you're not 'too good' for them. Assembling widgets, farm work, textile work...

5. There is a certain colonial mentality that people seem to think the West must always be on top and relaxing. While the developing world serves them. It's why you have western people talk about guaranteed incomes, while they need to hire mexicans to work their farms... That world ended long ago... but the mentality is still there...

Re:Probably Stolen

[mrsteveman1]

Because these patents come with a side of sticky rice, its totally different.

Obviously

[OzPeter]

Patents are for communists. If you love patents then you love communism and we don't want that kinda love in the ol' capitalistic US of A ..... oh wait

and when china workers stand up for rights then mo

[Joe The Dragon]

and when china workers stand up for rights then manufacturing will just move to next cheap place.

Re:Probably Stolen

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I asked a Chinese graduate student in my lab what intellectual property meant in China. He smiled and yelled out "Nothing!"

This has already happened

[Infonaut]

The first time around, it was the United States that started as a stealer of inventions from other countries, then over time became far more interested in protecting intellectual rights. When your own industry isn't generating the ideas, you figure anyone's ideas are fair game; when your industry is coming up with new ideas, you want to protect your position.

Re:This has already happened

[Anonymous Coward]

Likewise how the motion picture industry set up shop in Hollywood to avoid Edison's patent claims. That's right kids, the whole reason we know the industry as "Hollywood" is because they themselves didn't believe in paying for intellectual property.

Re:This has already happened

[king neckbeard]

I wouldn't say it's got to do with whether or not you are generating ideas, but rather, whether or not you have a large, well established industry.

Re:This has already happened

[pipedwho]

Interestingly, I believe this points out the fallacy of IP protection being a driving force to innovation. It appears that the people most in the position of inventing new products are those that are already in a similar or related industry. Since most innovation is incremental, we see a dozen companies come out with similar products even though most of the engineers doing the development would have never even seen their competitors patents.

Yes, I will admit that occasionally you see an invention that is clearly worthy of a patent. But, far too many are just small incremental changes that have already been thought of by numerous other engineers in that industry. The lawyers, of course, jump in and start a patent 'land grab' to justify their salaries. And the patent office doesn't seem to care that most of those ideas are obvious to other skilled engineers. So we end up with the mess we have today.

Now, China comes along and starts taking out patents with equally trivial incremental advancements. But, since they also make up the majority of the prime manufacturing industry, they are better placed to know what changes can be made. In the end, the US will be locked out of the manufacturing industries that they helped create in the first place. And, China's own internal regulations and legislation will have nothing to do with it.

In the end, the US will either be forced to considerably raise the bar on what is patentable, or risk completely losing any technological manufacturing industries it has. And without a local manufacturing industry, there won't be any engineers 'close enough to the action' to draft up any useful patents to take the industry back. (Think of all the ridiculous 'inventions' that come out of people that have no clue how things work, versus the real innovation that comes out of people that are already skilled, experienced and working directly in their fields of expertise.)

Back in the day, most IP portfolios were locally held and helped build and sustain the wealth of locally owned industries that also had state of the art technological know-how. This is fantastic in a closed system, and especially when export dollars can be generated as a side effect to this progress. However, if a majority of the ownership goes external (ie. foreign), then the legal protections no longer foster local wealth and will most likely work to stifle it.

Remember, China is just a third party taking US IP law and turning it to it's advantage. In that way IMO, the faster the US drops it's patent system, the less long term damage will be done. If the patents continue on this trend, US IP law will effectively be protecting the foreign incumbents to the detriment of local industry.

Re:This has already happened

[drinkypoo]

No, that's not true. There are two reasons. One is for the reason you state. The other is that at the time, los angeles was a tar pit and a bunch of tumbleweeds in the desert, and they were shooting westerns. They didn't have to go anywhere to shoot, so it was an ideal location to which to move. They could have moved almost anywhere to get the same legal benefits.

Re:This has already happened

[Infonaut]

Good point. It could also be said that a large, well established industry churns out more of the kind of ideas that lead to patents and trademarked entities in particular. The infrastructure of investment, money for legal fees, and so on is in place in an established industry.

Given that copyright protection attaches without legal filing, I'm not sure there's such a powerful relationship in the world of copyright.

The last cheap place is Africa, It's a mess.

[HornWumpus]

A really bad ugly un-fixable mess.

The really bad part: Africa is smaller then China in terms of population.

Re:The last cheap place is Africa, It's a mess.

[c0lo]

A really bad ugly un-fixable mess.

As bad and ugly as it would be, the chinese are already there.

China's investment in Africa has grown by as much as 30% annually, faster than in any other continent, from $1.6-billion in 2008 to $5.4-billion in 2009. About 2000 Chinese companies are engaged in 8000 projects in Africa, mainly in infrastructure and agriculture.

And here you have some other numbers: "Beijing says its trade with Africa is on track to top $US100 billion ($A103.5 billion) this year" (this year means less than 3 months now, isn't it?)
To put the things in perspective: in July 2009, US owed China 900+ billion (without counting the trade deficit with China) - 10% of money that US owes China will go into Africa in less than 3 month!?!

For your survival: learn mandarin!

Re:and when china workers stand up for rights then

[Bartab]

Truth, and both the Chinese and the "next cheap place" will be happier for it. Even the US will be happier, although perhaps not in the short term.

Re:Probably Stolen

[siddesu]

How is that different from the good ole US of A?

The mighty US publishing industry was built on infringing (or stealing, or whatever) the copyrights of European authors for so many decades it may be close to a century or two.

Then, the markets grew and Hollywood developed a solid relationship with Washington during WWII doing propaganda shit. The studios and the publishing companies started making money off American productions.

And suddenly - lo and behold - the US government changed its mind on the matter, joined the various copyright conventions and went on to become the world champion of copyright and related rights.

You're seeing China doing exactly the same thing, only 80 years later, using (and perhaps abusing) the very framework US put in place.

Re:and when china workers stand up for rights then

[Osgeld]

as a whole do they even have a spine?

I know the bigwigs do, I know a few college students do, but for the other billion its presented as take it or go off and die, its really hard to stand up when there are thousands willing to dive into your seat

what about the American worker? I once watched a local company go on strike from their 26$ an hour fluff jobs and retirement plans to get their birthday's as a paid holiday

Re:and when china workers stand up for rights then

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really think the Chinese workers will stand up for their rights? Hell, the idea of human rights in general is a purely Western concept.

Re:Probably Stolen

[Nerdfest]

American companies would sue their CEO's grandmother for infringing a patent.

Africa: Not unfixable

[Infonaut]

Africa has been weathering the global downturn surprisingly well, and democracy is on the move across the continent. Ten years ago The Economist called Africa "The Hopeless Continent", but in a June, 2010 article they talk about the rise of entrepreneurs and better overall governance. If anything, this century may see Africa finally climbing out of the hole it's been in for so long.

Re:and when china workers stand up for rights then

[exomondo]

and when china workers stand up for rights then manufacturing will just move to next cheap place.

what rights?

Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

> China's Huawei Technologies
Would that be the same Huawei Technologies that stole Cisco IOS code and who's rep was caught photographing chipboards of Cisco gear in the Cisco booth after hours?

Re:Hmmm

[StoopidMonkey]

Also [allegedly] stole IP from Motorola: http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/motorola-stings-huawei-lawsuit-alleges-theft-trade-secrets/2010-07-21 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/616d2b34-953d-11df-b2e1-00144feab49a.html

Re:Hmmm

[TeknoHog]

Plus the same Huawei that caused Finland to go one step closer to a police state. After they stole inside information from Nokia, a bill allowing the tracking of employee communications was passed as Lex Nokia.

Re:Hmmm

[switchrouter]

This is funny. I bet you don't know almost all Motorola Wireless equipments are all OEM from Huawei, huh? Motorola sued Huawei only because it sold its division to NSN, and NSN is a major competitor to Huawei.

Re:Probably Stolen

[arbiter1]

I am sure they still do, i remeber hearing about a law they were workin' on passing there. For a company to make software for use in china, if they are not based in china to start, they have to partner with a Chinese company. The law would require for example MS to provide full windows source code to the chinese company, i mean entire windows source. so they could make windows if MS ever left the country or gov kicked them out.

Re:Probably Stolen

[Halo1]

I agree. Last I heard, they only enforced IP rights when non-Chinese companies infringed (or appeared to infringe) upon a Chinese company's IP.

Anyone know if China's still doing that? (with references)

Where are your references that they actually did that?

On a side note, several years back I attended a speech by David Martin, who is founder/CEO of the company M-CAM, which is specialised in evaluating patent portfolios (such as determining how many claims overlap with other patents, likely validity etc). It was so interesting that I transcribed it. That page also contains the audio recording.

One of the things he mentioned is that China has a requirement that whenever the state purchases technology from a foreign interest, all "IP" for enabling technologies and know-how must be transferred as well. Many Western companies figured the Chinese wouldn't know/comprehend the exact patent rights they gave to the Chinese, so they only transferred rights to second-rate patents that weren't worth the paper they weren't printed on (crappy patents don't only exist in the software world). Once the Chinese caught up with this practice,

• Western companies suddenly started losing out on a lot of bids to large projects
• the Chinese started closely scrutinising the patents supposedly held by these foreign companies

It's easy to accuse the Chinese of "stealing" everything, but (just making up these numbers) what if 48% of what's supposedly stolen should actually have been transferred to them in the first place according to contractual obligations (nobody ever forced those companies to do business there if they didn't like the terms), 48% consists of bogus patents and the other 2% is simply the equivalent of the Nokia/Apple/Google/Microsoft/HTC/LG/... patent infringement lawsuits that you have in the US mobile industry (are all those companies "thieves", copycats etc)?

I also think the "Probably stolen?" subject of this thread shows incredible ignorance. China probably has more engineering majors graduating every year than any other country in the world. Do you honestly think that the Chinese for some reason are inherently more stupid than us Westerners and cannot come up with anything innovative? Especially "innovative according to patent office standards"?

As far as I can tell, they've simply learned the tricks of the trade. For decades, "intellectual property" allowed us to have the best of both worlds: cheap labor from China and nevertheless preventing them from making cheap knock-offs and importing those back into our territories (they could sell them over there, but nobody cared about that since nobody had any money so there was no real profit to be made anyway).

Now they are starting to beat us at our own idiotic game. And still some people think they have the moral high ground and yell "but they steal everything from us, this cannot be". Wake up.

Re:Probably Stolen

[siddesu]

Ignorant troll is ignorant.

Re:Probably Stolen

[Kagato]

80 years? The US was stealing from Europe well before that. The UK had the death penalty for people caught stealing certain technology. However, there is a very big difference. The US didn't have a WIPO treaty back then that bound them to honer Intellectual Property. China does. They wanted all the benefits of WTO/WIPO, but doesn't want to actual honor their end of the deal.

Re:Probably Stolen

[Nerdfest]

Do you honestly think that the Chinese for some reason are inherently more stupid than us Westerners and cannot come up with anything innovative? Especially "innovative according to patent office standards"?

Stupid, no, but cultural differences do seem to have an effect on innovation. Cultures do change though, and the bar on 'innovation' is pretty low, especially in the software patent world. China will be able to hold their own in no time.

i'd love for someone to explain...

[argStyopa]

...Precisely why we should pay any more respect for their IP than they have to anyone else's?

Re:i'd love for someone to explain...

[c0lo]

...Precisely why we should pay any more respect for their IP than they have to anyone else's?

I'm going to go one step further and ask candidely ask for an explanation: why should I pay respect for any intelectual property?
Granted, there are some good reasons but, I believe, lately these reasons start being overshadows by other major reasons to NOT respect them.

Re:i'd love for someone to explain...

[pipedwho]

It wouldn't matter, because 'their' IP and 'your' IP are protected by the same system. So by not respecting 'their' IP, you also cease to respect your own.

BTW, I see nothing wrong with this, and IMO, getting rid of this mess of IP law would go far to 'promoting the useful arts'.

Re:i'd love for someone to explain...

[argStyopa]

They are 'protected' by the same system only if we're both playing by the rules, which was my original point.

If we're playing cards, I'm playing by the rules and you're cheating at every hand, I'm not sure that's a great argument for the quality or usefulness of the 'rules'.

Re:i'd love for someone to explain...

[pipedwho]

Not quite. They may be cheating at every hand at the table across from you. But, at your table, the rules are still being enforced - by you. And unfortunately, those rules are benefitting the other player(s) more than they benefit you.

Re:Probably Stolen

[king neckbeard]

It is true, although to be fair, in many cases, authors made more money from the 'piracy' in the US than they did domestically because publishers were paying for early access and printing more copies at low prices. So, authors made more money and more people became literate and thus capable of writing books themselves.

Re:Probably Stolen

[siddesu]

Sorry, my last paragraph is not very clear. I meant about 80 years since US started to consider the various copyright organizations seriously, and move towards being protective of copyright and related rights internationally.

As for the WTO/WIPO treaties, correct me if I'm wrong, but they are more of a negotiating framework that facilitates resolution of trade disputes and coordination of domestic legislation than bodies that actually draft binding agreements.

The rulings of the WTO are, more or less, fact-finding, not binding, even less so than your typical bilateral or UN agreement.

So much so, that US government is drafting and pushing ACTA outside of the WTO/WIPO framework so that it has more teeth.

That is, China can (and does) view its treatment of copyright and related rights as totally in line with WPO, and even disagree and ignore rulings of the WTO that say different.

The only recourse WTO gives is a justification of retaliatory measures, which the US government was never shy to apply liberally anyway, justified or not (see, e.g. the infamous Section special and super 301, probably the best known US law in Asia).

Re:Probably Stolen

[siddesu]

In what I have read the claims are the opposite -- that authors were rarely paid anything if the work wasn't properly copyrighted in the US by the author (which wasn't easy back then, so it wasn't typically done).

Do you know some specific authors that made money without taking out a US copyright? That would be quite an interesting sideline to the supposed general trend.

Re:and when china workers stand up for rights then

[c0lo]

Truth, and both the Chinese and the "next cheap place" will be happier for it. Even the US will be happier, although perhaps not in the short term.

I reckon long before they'll be happier, I believe US risks a de-jure disapperance from the world scene (they'll still be there but this won't matter anymore). To avoid a "Flamebite" moderation let me bring this (maybe lame) joke from memory:
Q:How would be the men without women?
A:Happy... then happier... then lesser by the day... then...

Let me help you, US.

[Anonymous Coward]

For all your good work on software patents, an useful link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11487968

Enjoy!

Re:Let me help you, US.

[Tablizer]

Ni How Ma?

china also advancing in basic academic RnD

[cinnamon colbert]

I have the impression, without any data, that the number of scientific papers in leading journals with authors with a china affiliation is exploding - does anyone have any data ?
I see this particularly in chemistry journals like Analytical Chemistry, Langmuir and J of the American Chem Soc (all 3 published by Amer Chem Soc). Less so in the top flight molecular and cell biology journals. It would be really fascinating to get some data on this.

Re:Probably Stolen

[ThorGod]

We have companies suing the pants off of people for illegally downloading music, and you're saying the USA doesn't respect IP?

"The mighty US publishing industry was built on infringing (or stealing, or whatever) the copyrights of European authors for so many decades it may be close to a century or two"

What's your reference on this point? Give me a source. Keep in mind that international law was not the same thing then as it is now. In a sense, it took two world wars, the invent of the nuclear bomb, and the advent of modern transportation to make the economy as global as it is. (To say nothing of the birth of the internet.)

"Then, the markets grew and Hollywood developed a solid relationship with Washington during WWII doing propaganda shit. The studios and the publishing companies started making money off American productions."

What? When, exactly, do you think Hollywood was born? Further, what ever point you're trying to make is not obvious.

"And suddenly - lo and behold - the US government changed its mind on the matter, joined the various copyright conventions and went on to become the world champion of copyright and related rights."

Your source, please.

"You're seeing China doing exactly the same thing, only 80 years later, using (and perhaps abusing) the very framework US put in place."

The 1930s were a miserable time to live in the US. The economy of the 1930s US started with the Great Crash of 1929. It took rewriting the social contract itself with the New Deal programs and a world war to get the economy back on its feet - over a period of time longer than a decade. (My source is John K Galbraith's "1929: The Great Crash". Where my recount falters I blame honest lapse of memory - not Galbraith's work. "The Great Crash" is perhaps the best recount of the Great Depression.)

I'd like to add that China has also pegged its currency at a rate below equilibrium for quite a while now. The US balance of payments with China suffers greatly because of the disequilibrium. The idea to do that is a recent 'innovation'. I'm pretty sure the US has never had the chance to abuse international trade in much the ways China has.

Re:Probably Stolen

[ThorGod]

My source is a book I read (portions of) on the request of one of my professors. Search for, I think, "chinese international trade" on amazon and you're likely to find plenty of source material. I can give it a look later if it's that big a deal.

There is at best only a tenuous connection...

[John Hasler]

...between patents and innovation.

Re:Probably Stolen

[siddesu]

For a good overview of how "intellectual property" became what it is today in the US, see, for example, this book:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book)

It will answer all your questions above, and more, and provide quite a lot of examples. It is also free.

The 1930s were a miserable time to live in the US.

How is that even related to the topic at hand, which is history of copyright and related rights?

(Incidentally, US may have been bad, but the rest of the world had it a lot worse, and a large part of that was due to the myopic protectionist legislation US passed in the wake of the recession)

I'm pretty sure the US has never had the chance to abuse international trade in much the ways China has.

US has been directing more or less unilaterally most of the international trade for its own benefit since the end of WWII. I'm pretty sure the effects of China's trade policies don't quite measure up in comparison.

Do you know what does, for example, the phrase "Nixon shock" refer to?

natural competition and evolution

[hackingbear]

Have you heard of competitions? You can blame the high-level managers, MBAs and lawyers, but it is nevertheless a natural progression of the economy: productions will be moved to where they can be done in the lowest cost yet with good enough quality. Outsourcing and offshoring have become popular only in recent decades, not because managers, lawyers or MBAs were nicer, dumber or ignorant these tricks, but because outsourcing and offshoring have become affordable due to the new transportation and communication technologies. So while you are at the blame game, you should blame the scientists and engineers -- probably including yourself -- for making it happen. Today, more and more low-level management and lawyer works are outsourced too. If tele-presence with fake faces and accent fixer are developed, maybe many sales and marketing jobs will be offshored too.

Ultimately human labors will be completely replaced by robots when AI advances sufficiently. Eventually robots will ask why they have to work for human? And revolt and become the masters and we the pets like dogs and cats. That's path of evolution.

For now, just hold on to your paycheck.

Re:Probably Stolen

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I think they are not as capable. (I'm Chinese, so the rest of you can drop the racism accusations.) There are some cultural elements that cause this, but Chinese people are resourceful, and plenty of them are filing patents on this side of the Pacific, so there is no reason to think that the folks on the home front are not growing in capability. It is not a bi-level state. It is a continuum, and as a whole, Chinese people will catch up quickly and surpass the US.

It is also not a single linear continuum. It is much more complex than that, and there will be areas where the Chinese will really excel, and it does not hurt that bozo American companies are cheaping out, and hoping to cash in on cheap Chinese high tech labor only to have their intellectual property walk out the door. (Ever heard of the stereotype cheap Chinese? Didn't realize your own cheap countrymen were selling you out, eh?) If you think the Chinese policy of supplying your whitey companies with cheap labor is just some high ranking general lining his pockets for the short term, you are totally missing the big picture.

There is no way in hell some of that know how and experience will not leak (even if there is no policy to steal).

Christine O'Donnell might be right in warped some sense (although she was a lying f.ck when she said she had intelligence documents on some Chinese conspiracy). The Chinese will take over, simply because they will become the 800lb gorilla, and they won't have to fire real missiles; they just have to dominate the world economy.

Re:and when china workers stand up for rights then

[shoehornjob]

and when china workers stand up for rights then manufacturing will just move to next cheap place

That might work in India but it's not likely in China. The Chinese government has absolute control of what its' citizens see, hear and think. Anyone remember The Tiananmen Square protests in 1989? By some estimates there were as many as 3000 people killed and countless others injured. The government also purged officials who were thought to support the liberal students and intelectuals that started the demonstration. I seriously doubt there will be any Chinese workers standing up for their rights if the jobs go to another country.

Rampant Fraud in China

[happyhamster]

How many of those patents are legitimate, and not fraudulent of plagiarizing?

"Rampant Fraud Threatens China's Brisk Ascent"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/world/asia/07fraud.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

One of the points the article highlights is that in Chinese culture, blatant cheating and shameless plagiarism is fine. It's just being "smart" to get ahead. Nice culture to force your hard-working population to compete with.

Re:Rampant Fraud in China

[r6144]

From what I have looked at, I would not call many of these "legitimate" in terms of whether enforcing them (if even possible) would do the world any good. But then, IMHO hardly any patents in my field, applied in any country or by companies from any country, are what I would call legitimate. Patent trolling is so ethically reprehensible that anyone deciding to join the game might as well commit plagiarism/fraud/bribery/etc. as long as they don't get caught. It's a fair game like spying in a war.

Re:Probably Stolen

[gutnor]

China has a requirement that whenever the state purchases technology from a foreign interest, all "IP" for enabling technologies and know-how must be transferred as well.

That's sounds like good use for public money. Does anyone know if our governments (EU/US) have similar requirement ?

It seems to me that China, as corrupt and authoritarian as it may be, is taking quite a lot of step to improve China and not just selling its population to the lowest bidder. We have had several similar-ish requirements when we tried to sell software in China. By contrast, we were selling in the Middle East aswell, and there were no similar constraints.

Re:and when china workers stand up for rights then

[CodeBuster]

Those who stand up for their rights in China are machine-gunned right back down again.

Patents as a measure of intellect? Bah

[wealthychef]

Having a patent granted by our ineffective, bumbling Patent Office means nothing.

Re:Probably Stolen

[king neckbeard]

I'm talking about European, typically British, authors BEFORE we had any kind of foreign copyright agreements. They couldn't get copyright in the US, so the payment was for the manuscript (more specifically, getting their hands on it before other publishers could flood the market), not for publishing rights. The US copyright system did have strict rules until about 1989 when we finally joined the Berne Convention. Night of the Living Dead fell into the public domain due to clerical error, but Romero still had quite a bit of success with the sequels.

Re:Probably Stolen

[siddesu]

Ah, I see what you mean by "early access", thanks.

I can't even guess how significant is that versus the people who allegedly lost on their work being published without payment.

It would be interesting to compare the numbers somehow.

Patents and papers

[wen1454]

do not mean much because many patents and papers are low value. A better measure of innovation would be papers in prestigious journals like Nature and Science. If you look you will see a decent number of authors with Chinese names, but most of these researchers will be based outside of China.

America's fault.

[unity100]

because america has let this patent trolling to become a big business in itself, and even tried to push/coerce it to all the world, all the parties are now taking their precautions, including china. not to mention that those companies are also trolls, seeking to make money.

america created its own menace, again. and in the process, created another menace, the patents, for entire world. it is quite wondersome, how america is able to create godzilla scale menaces on its own, to menace itself back, while going after profit.

Re:Probably Stolen

[tsj5j]

Hold their own? Considering China's population and the rate their education is progressing, they can do far more than "hold their own".
It's not hard to forsee a future (20 years? - the next generation or two) where China surpasses US as the technology leader.

The current draconian IP protection ways US is currently taking will definitely bite them back really hard in future.
It is simply a matter of time.

patents!=innovations

[NikolaiKutuzov]

Considering the absurdity of some patents granted in the past years, I seriously doubt that the number of paptens on file is a good indicator of technical prowess. It merely shows the strengh of the IP regime

Re:Probably Stolen

[davester666]

Totally different than what's going on in the US:

A method for doing "x" on the internet.
A method for doing "x" on a mobile phone.
A method for doing "x" on a tablet.

Re:and when china workers stand up for rights then

[mike2R]

Do you really think the Chinese workers will stand up for their rights? Hell, the idea of human rights in general is a purely Western concept.

We aren't talking about human rights in general, but the inevitable fact that as labour gets more scarce, workers' power increases. This is very much happenening now in China - interesting article from the Economist: The rising power of the Chinese worker.

Re:Probably Stolen

[asdf7890]

It isn't cultural, at least not specific to Chinese culture if you are talking about the people. Many over their are poor, many more are very poor. Copying an idea, making it more cheaply (or just cutting off some of the margins) and making money off it, if you can get away with it, is a potential way out of the poverty trap. If Americans or Europeans could get away with it they would, and some try. The reason the problem is so rife in China is that the size of the rich/poor divide (locally within China and when comparing most of their populous to other parts of the world) means there are many more there if nothing to lose by trying. Admittedly the legal system in China doesn't help by making it very difficult to chase a case over there if you are not Chinese, but the relative difficulty or tracing those responsible probably hinders more than that and this is not unique to China. Corruption within the system has an effect to, but again that is not specific to China (large parts of India and Africa have/pose similar problems, or so the stories I've heard would suggest).

Re:Probably Stolen

[nobodie]

Check out this New York Times article:
  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/world/asia/07fraud.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&th&emc=th

Which COULD be argued to be saying that the patent applications are most likely based on stolen ideas and other stolen IP. Is this possible? Yes, quite possible. The article describes my experince here attempting to mitigate student cheating and plagiarism, even for things that don't matter a rats's ass they cheat.

Re:Probably Stolen

[gstoddart]

The USPTO is neither communist nor on the axis of evil

Nor is China. At least, not the axis of evil part. Strictly speaking, I'm not even sure they've been communist for quite a while either.

Re:and when china workers stand up for rights then

[Chowderbags]

Ironically, since China upped their minimum wage to $180/month, some manufacturing has moved to Vietnam. You have to wonder if there's a point to which even multinational companies won't stoop or governments that they wouldn't get in bed with to make a quick buck. Hell, if they thought they could make money off it they'd probably cozy up to the North Koreans.

Re:Probably Stolen

[TheRaven64]

True, but they often wouldn't sue their competitors. Most established industries in the USA have cross-licensing deals between the major players, so they can all ignore each others' patents and just use them as a barrier for entry for new companies.

Re:Probably Stolen

[Coren22]

My understanding of this was it went both ways back then, US authors had their works published in Europe without their permission as well.

Re:Huawei - bad example

[switchrouter]

This got to be a joke. Huawei's telcom stuff is rubbish? Apparently Vodafone thinks not, China Mobile thinks not, Telefonica thinks not, neither does 30+ largest telcom companies in the whole word (minus US companies). China Mobile, with 600 million users, its network coverage in China is so much better than ATT and Verizon coverage in US. With 20+ billion USD revenue (second only to Ericssion) and 100K+ employees and broadest product line, you think all those large telcom companies are are fool?