Slashdot Mirror
The Surprising Rise of China As IP Powerhouse (techcrunch.com)
hackingbear quotes a report from TechCrunch: China is not only taking the spotlight in strong defense of global markets and free trade, filling a vacuum left by retreating Western capitalist democracies, China is quickly becoming a (if not the) global leader in intellectual property protection and enforcement. And there too, just as Western democracies (especially the United States) have grown increasingly skeptical of the value of intellectual property and have weakened protection and enforcement, China has been steadily advancing its own intellectual property system and the protected assets of its companies and citizens. In addition to filing twice as many patents as the U.S., China is increasingly being selected as a key venue for patent litigation between non-Chinese companies. Why? Litigants feel they are treated fairly. Reports indicated that in 2015, 65 foreign plaintiffs won all of their cases against other foreign companies before Beijing's IP court. And even foreign plaintiffs suing Chinese companies won about 81 percent of their patent cases, roughly the same as domestic Chinese plaintiffs. China's journey from piracy to protection models the journeys of other Western and Asian countries. While building its industrial economies, the U.S. and major European powers violated IP laws with no consideration. As reported by The Guardian, Doron Ben-Atar, a history professor at Fordham University, has noted that "U.S. and every major European state engaged in technology piracy and industrial espionage in the 18th and 19th century." It took Western economies a hundred or more years to change that behavior. China's mind-whipping change is happening over decades, not centuries.
"Chinese can only copy and make lower quality stuff" is this stupid arrogant colonialist misconception.
They are as smart as all of us humans, and if they get a decent education, they are as capable of producing "IP" and of defending it in court.
Just wait and see. Oh, USA, seems you lived for too long from rent. You are going to crumble like the Soviet empire did, shortly ago. We'll see some little wars in your backyard, the once proud bald eagle eating flies and worms.
Chineemacs is best Gnu Os for Gnu.
How is this surprising???
China has been a major powerhouse of labor (in all forms) for decades.
Lets face it if you start by copying someone elses work , then the natural progression is to understand how it works, and then to actually make your own improved version.. eventually you start innovating on your own..
The rest of the world has let this happen with its complacency and laziness.
The fact that they started from a platform of knowledge has speed up their progress and the sheer number of bodies/brains boosts this far more than Europe or US could(especially in the past, where the population numbers were smaller and more literate).
I believe we can compete but truly the only way is with unity and common purpose.. which now a days seems to be a massive dream..
lol what is this, The Onion?
The world learned that starting up business in China was a good way to get fucked over and have all your secrets stolen. All the companies left and China is trying to woo them back to fuck them in the other hole.
China - you may be a new IP powerhouse, but just try taking a flight on United Airlines. We'll show you!
I am wholly unsurprised that they have IP after hacking our entire infrastructure.
They may have IP, but do they have TCP or UDP yet?
So you can imagine our suprise when we were informed by a lawyer that we would be required to publish our source code for others to use. It was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under something called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License. Part of this license states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available. Unfortunately for us, this meant that the great deal of time and money we spent "touching up" Linux to work for this investment firm would now be available at no cost to our competitors.
Incorrect.
Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released. This was simply unacceptable.
Incorrect.
Thank you for your time my friends.
Incorrect. Trolling is not something you thank the subject for.
This is quite an interesting development, but it also doesn't surprise me. The patent system in the USA has basically jumped the shark now. You can get patents on almost anything, no matter how obvious or ridiculous it might be, and the more money you can spend on an attorney who has no idea how anything works but can get a list of words past the USPTO, the more absurd the patents can be. The result is that the system is now stuffed full of rubbish patents that are either at risk of invalidation, contradictory, or so specific that they are trivial to walk around (but add to the body of 'prior art' that can be used to invalidate other patents). All you can really do with patents now is drag someone into court and waste a lot of money on litigation. Just look at the Apple/Samsung fiasco to see how this works from a company that put a lot of effort into protecting its big invention.
It seems like the Chinese are just playing the game as well and benefiting from their lower costs to do it much more effectively. Among those I know with engineering companies, almost everyone just patents as a defensive strategy to prevent patent trolls coming along and dragging them into court (the mutually assured destruction nature of aggressive patent litigation doesn't apply to these NPEs). In a way I welcome the break down of the system in this way. Eventually everything will be patented ten times, making it very hard for a troll to gain much traction against legitimate companies trying to do useful things.
They made "technology transfer" a condition of doing business. Now that they've stolen everything, they want to protect their own improvements. For example the bullet train, they stole the technology from the French claiming it was a loophole technology transfer. Now they're improving it (sure, they have plenty of PhD's to assign to things) they say improvements are their own, don't leave China for free.
Honestly, if the west had the kind of restrictions/business environment against the chinese that they have against the west, they'd be squealing like crazy how unfair it is.
Look at me! Look at me! I'm waving my arms! I'm yelling! Believe what I say!
This is nothing but anti Western propaganda.
Dear slashdotters: If this is surprising to you, then you are morons. China has been protecting its IP while shitting on everyone else's IP laws since time was time.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
As education level and wealth of average citizen converge toward similar level, a country with 1 billion folk will have not only far more new IP than a country of 300 million, but also interest into protecting it. Chinese are not idiot, they know that if they infringe and do not protect IP of foreign companies, then sooner or later their own IP will not be protected either. The endgame is that the US and EU will simply be 2nd and 3rd and that's it (possibly 3rd and 4th or even lower if the same happen with India and various other countries).
The Ironic Rise of China As IP Powerhouse
The Chinese are the worst. Absolute worst! Sad!
China and H1B
Guaranteed to get the racists clicking.
Or, to be more precise, in cases where two foreign companies battled it out, one of them won in 100% of the cases.
Oh, the humanity...
Early in the process they stole IP to increase the rate of convergence, which I guess worked so well that they hit the point where creation surpasses theft much harder than others did. Or maybe this is just what converging with modern levels of development looks like. Either way, it's another sign of them hitting the plateau where the marginal returns of development diminish to almost nothing.
We're all crying on our Linux keyboards because of your BS stories. You're an idiot.
The US doesn't believe in actual IP, see that tiny county in west Texas, or why banks all claim to be from that one state.
As a top-tier (Sr/Lead) engineer at a Fortune 100 company, one of my biggest aversions to working in China is that they have (or had) no respect for intellectual property. I was more likely to be robbed there and have the state protect the theft than I was here. It seems that is no longer the case.
If IP and innovation are better protected in China than the US then I would not be surprised to see a reverse brain-drain to there. It may be that the land of opportunity has once again moved farther west.
Retreating Western democracies? More like foolish and outmaneuvered western democracies.
Western democracies have become skeptical about the value of IP and have weakened protections? On some other planet perhaps but not on this earth. Strengthening of protections and unifying these protections has been the obvious action by the west. So a complete fiction by Techcrunch.
US and European...umm..."powers" violated IP with no consideration? Again patently false. And yes I used "patently" on purpose because the patent process developed by those same "powers" is the actual consideration. Other IP laws are well established fact as well so the article accuses the very culture that codified IP protections of violating "IP" with "no consideration." Completely shameless. Without western culture there would be no IP laws.
Oh gee a history prof at Fordham accuses western culture of "engaging in IP piracy and espionage" then asserts it took centuries to "change the behavior."
Well creating the whole culture of Ip protection in the first place is of course is a different effort than reluctantly joining it after it was created. The Chinese are engaged in industrial espionage right now so the point is moot as far as China changing in decades goes. Also this isn't the first time a person born outside the west points the finger while criticizing the west based on certain values. Values asserted and established in the west while in the rest of the world? Crickets chirping.
Utterly shameless lies and abusiveness from Techcrunch.
What is /. publishing Chinese propaganda now?
I recently purchased a TYT MD-380 DMR handheld transceiver. It's Chinese of course, even the manual is in Chinglish. But I looked up it's FCC ID and I note they viciously try to protect the block diagram and schematics for the unit. A bit of googling turned those up though.
Patents are a drag to innovation, patents have no technical value, are only monopolies granted by the state, any economist will tell you that monopolies are bad and state monopolies are worse.
"Intellectual Property" should be abolished; patents in particular are evil. Patents are one of the biggest reasons we in 2017 we have 'robbed of our Jetsons future'.
Like a reformed smoker, China will protest the loudest when someone infringes on one of THEIR patents.
When they had little IP, they had no interest in protecting anyone else's. They stole all the ideas they could.
Now they are starting to have some IP, they want to keep the next set of 3rd world hell holes from using it.
Quite predictable.
Is that for now, it seems that trying IP cases in China's courts results in fair verdicts. But note that this in no way impacts other areas that might be of concern such as human rights and the little guy being screwed over by the rich big guy in their legal system. And I sure wouldn't conclude that any awesome political freedoms are coming to the average Chinese citizen because China now defends global markets and free trade. Look at Hong Kong.
majority of manufacturing, etc. Otherwise, it works against you.
However, the real problem is that CHina does not respect OTHER's IP, only CHina's.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The author is the former president of the American Intellectual Property Law Association. It's a shill piece.
Defenders of IP? Seriously. Can you explain the rampant piracy.
Defenders of global markets and free trade? Can you say state run/controller businesses, slave labor and currency devaluation.
Sorry you can't be taken seriously when you ignore how China operates.
China will respect IP instead of "IP all over it.
Companies with long-term vision must place bets accordingly.
Anybody with long-term vision will know that "IP" is a disaster in the making and should be lobbying to minimize it's scope. Patents only inhibit progress.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
USA: China copies everything. China needs to play by our rules.
China: Okay. We can do that. We can crank out more patents than you can shake a stick at. If you want to make anything, you have to deal with us.
Well, that sure is a sign of innovation! /sarcasm
Perhaps because it is a totalitarian state friendly to the interests of well-connected corporations?
Ah, thought so!
Given that they are also the world's biggest infringers, I'm taking this with an entire salt lick. 'Popular' and 'lucrative' do not instantly equal 'ethical' or even 'good idea'. Whatever, China.
Copyright keeps getting extended. People are locked out of fixing their own equipment. How could anyone possibly say that western countries are weakening their IP protection.
this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice
just as Western democracies (especially the United States) have grown increasingly skeptical of the value of intellectual property and have weakened protection and enforcement
What? The author must have been living under a rock for the past 20 years. DMCA, EUCD, software patents, western democracies have gone way to far in the protection and enforcement of intellectual property.
You can't even legally rip a DVD to watch it on your PC/tablet/phone/whatever in many western democracies.
"Intellectual Property" should be abolished; patents in particular are evil. Patents are one of the biggest reasons we in 2017 we have 'robbed of our Jetsons future'.
While this entire thread is full of thoughtful discussions that defend their arguments with logic and referenced facts, the above post has none of these traits, and should not be modded up and encouraged. Although a reader or moderator may have a knee jerk reaction to agree because we all know sticking to the man is fun, that particular post does nothing to explain "why" patents should be abolished and "how" patents robbed us of the Jetsons future. This is a poor argument, and not a terribly original one. There is nothing in it that enlightens or honestly, surprises. It celebrates group think and dogma. This is the ugly side of slashdot, and it really should stop.
To play devil's advocate, the OP writes that intellectual property should be abolished. The funny thing is, the people who claim this never seem to think that THEIR intellectual property should be abolished, just someone else's. For example, a high percentage of the people on this forum write code or design web pages. They get paid very well for doing so. Yet, they don't seem so excited to publish their source code here. I mean, if you truly do not believe in intellectual property then you have no compunctions against giving me all your work, so I can sell it to a company for less than you did. No one reading this will do so, because they believe that THEIR work has value and THEIR intellectual property should be protected. What people like the OP mean is that they want other people to write movies and games for them for free.
Maybe you agree with the last paragraph, perhaps not, and you can find holes in the argument and with facts refute it. Please do. That would be an honest, interesting discussion.....unlike what the OP got modded up for, somehow.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
I recently wore out an angle grinder in my garage, and decided to buy a good one. There are some well known high-quality brands. Some used to be made in the USA, but others were made in Germany, and Japan. Brands like Fein, Milwaukee, Festool, Metabo, and Makita. I started researching, and every single one of them are made in China now. Even if some of their higher-end models are made in the country of origin, their lower end models (still rather expensive) are made in China. Now it could be that those companies still make them 'at home' and only make them in China for export, but I have no evidence of that.
As the parent pointed out, all made-in-China parts are not equal. A Makita angle grinder (the one I got) is absolutely not the same quality as one from Harbor Freight. "Made in China" doesn't mean junk, just like "Made in USA" doesn't mean quality.
I think as long as we continue to have this mindset we will be at a disadvantage because we aren't living in reality. Just like we thought American-made cars were the best and Japanese cars were junk - and we got our asses handed to us. The same thing can and probably will happen with technology and other areas unless we wake up to reality and get off our high horse.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The PRC as IP king is ironic considering how little respect the PRC has for the IP of others.
The largest piracy site is nothing like Pirate Bay but is Baidu which is owned by the PRC and often has new cinema releases an hour after pressing and way before they make the theater.
The United States promoted, and insisted on strong patent and copyright legislation. Now that China has overtaken the United States technologically, and will continue to grow the technology gap, it will be amusing to watch the US squirm in the patent quagmire that it has created for itself. There is no way that a corrupt economy like the United States will be able to compete on fair and equal terms. It will be amusing to watch the backtracking, and attempts to weaken the 'Imaginary Property' protection that the US empire spent so much effort creating, when it still had the upper hand. I can only hope that the Chinese deliver a robust lesson to their American inferiors. This is a mess of American construction. I will take pleasure in watching the Evil Empire in Washington squirm under the pressure of its own creation.
Totally False.
This lie has been sold endlessly about China.
The seller ALWAYS tells you quality and price up front when asked if you visited the markets and get involved in procurement directly face to face.
So it is the buyer that is responsible for all the poor quality stuff they bought thinking they can con customers in the west cutting costs.
And they will blame their China supplier when it all goes wrong when it is they themselves that should take the blame.
Note QA is still QA so don't shirk on that at any time either and it is always your fault if you slipped up with QA, because in manufacturing
the buck stops at the QA man's door. Nowhere else. All the procedures in the world can't help you if slip on QA and fall.
China is a fascist totalitarian state, identical in structure to the fascist totalitarian model of almost all corporate institutions. Both structures inherently destroy freedom, civil liberties and free markets in singular pursuit of monopoly control. Claiming that IP protectionism or proxy merger of totalitarian forces can promote "free markets" is so antithetical to the reality that it becomes Orwellian. Free market capitalism is a myth that doesn't exist anywhere, and war will never be peace.