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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."
I wonder how long it will be until "intellectual property" lawyers start complaining about their cases being outsourced?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
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.
1. Disregard foreign patents
2. Acquire patents for use against foreign firms
3. PROFIT!
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)
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
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?
Because these patents come with a side of sticky rice, its totally different.
and when china workers stand up for rights then manufacturing will just move to next cheap place.
Well I asked a Chinese graduate student in my lab what intellectual property meant in China. He smiled and yelled out "Nothing!"
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.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
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.
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.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
> 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?
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,
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.
Donate free food here
Ignorant troll is ignorant.
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.
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.
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!
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
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?
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.
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.