Chinese President Vows To Boost Intellectual Property Protection (afr.com)

hackingbear writes: In the opening of China's first import-themed trade fair, President Xi Jinping promised tougher penalties for intellectual property theft, a key concern of the Trump administration, in front of leaders and executives from 3,600 companies from more than 170 countries. China has been steadily advancing intellectual property protection over the years. In addition to filing twice as many patents as the U.S. in 2017, up nearly 14 folds from 2001, it is also increasingly being selected as a key venue for patent litigation by non-Chinese companies, as litigants feel they are treated fairly as foreign plaintiffs won the majority of their patent cases in 2015 (though that likely attracts patent trolls). China's journey from piracy to protection models the journeys of the U.S. which had blatantly violated intellectual properties in building its modern industry.

Comments

#1 thing they need to do

[jonwil]

The #1 thing they need to do if they are serious about combating IP theft is to stamp out all the bootlegging that goes on in their country.

LEGO have recently won a court case against a major Chinese bootlegger but other than a minor fine and possibly a need to redesign or stop selling a few products (out of the many bootleg products they currently make and sell around the world) it wont do a thing to stop the knock-offs.

Enforcement action by the government and its agencies to shut down the bootlegging (of everything from LEGO to designer bags to golf clubs to baby formula) would be the single biggest thing the Chinese government could do to show the world that it is serious about respecting intellectual property rights.

Re: #1 thing they need to do

[Anonymous Coward]

"The way I see it, now they have stolen all their technology they want to protect future advancements they make with it."

Yes, exactly the same way the US developed itself after stealing european tech back when they were the pirates.

Re:#1 thing they need to do

[Zocalo]

Clearly not even LEGO thinks this since there are several other systems of building block toys out there and readily available. The clue was the use of the term "bootleg product"; that basically implies a knock-off that either pretends to be the official product or is an obvious clone of it. In this specific case it's a rip-off of LEGO's product, right down to replacing the LEGO logo with their own "Lepin" version and replication of the Mini-Fig form, as can be seen in this article. You can quibble over "IP" in the context of imaginary property, but LEGO's case was on the grounds of registered trademark infringment which isn't doesn't get much more black and white than that.

Words are cheap.

[Gravis Zero]

I'll believe it when I see them actually enforcing this. Besides, the Chinese government doesn't consider it theft when they take it because they have laws that compel you to comply. Got a factory in China? Yeah, it's at least 51% owned by the Chinese so that (surprise!) they can insist that all IP be handed over.

Nothing is changing here, it's just words. The idea here is to fool Xi's US counterpart.

Re:Words are cheap.

[Mashiki]

Nothing is changing here, it's just words. The idea here is to fool Xi's US counterpart.

No it's not to fool the US counterpart, it's to fool all of the countries and companies that do business in China. Why do you ask? Well for the first time the politburo has stated that "yes they are actually worried about the tariffs, but also countries moving out of china and back to their home countries." Topping this out with the anti-chinese sentiment allowing them to buy up resources/land/etc in other countries for their own use.

The second part, is they've just had 9 repeat quarters of GDP dropoff, and in order to stave off negative GDP growth they want to pump in more debt to bolster it. Problem is, they're burning on empty. They have nearly 1000 large cities that have next to no population and nobody can buy into them. They have hundreds of cities modeled after Canadian and US housing developments...but nobody is buying them. Can't even rent them. They sit there...empty. But all those companies have debts for pay, resources, etc that are starting to come due and there's been a big spike in business failures and asset forfeitures. Now the really interesting thing, banks have been lending on assets(resources, stockpiles, buildings, etc). Then finding out that 3 other banks have done the same, and those assets don't exist.

Ready for the real shitshow to start? If you are, let the tariffs keep going. Japan, Korea, Philippines, Singapore will cheer China hitting serious financial problems.

Re:But..

[Errol backfiring]

There is copyright, patent law, etc. But "intellectual property" is just a term coined by people who want it to be a general system to forbid unpaid thoughts. The more people repeat it, the more people think it actually exists. It does not.

This "post" / propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else think this article reads like propaganda? My first thought when I read this is that it might have been written by someone from the Chinese government.

They have a fairly consistent pattern of how they present ideas, including the choice of words used -- anything that China does that's in their favor is their "sovereign right" or "internal affair" and anything that anyone does that's against China's benefit (real or perceived) is "wrong" or "a mistake".

The part that especially got me was the last sentence that basically admits to committing piracy, but defends it in the same breath saying 'Well that's what the US did to build their industry'.

Re:hypocrisy much?

[cerberusss]

This. And to add to that, President Xi Jinping is well known for saying what everybody wants to hear and then turning around and do exactly the opposite. If you're a company and dare say something about it, expect to get all sorts of weird investigations and licenses retracted for vague and made-up reasons.

In this particular area, things are slowly turning around now that Trump is saying something about it, and not budging. At least, that's what economists like Kees de Kort are saying. I don't think anybody in The Netherlands is a fan of Trump, but the fact that he points out these Chinese hypocracies is well received.

basically means the war is lost

[gweihir]

For the US mostly. China now thinks they benefit more from IP protections than from not having them and that simply means they produce more value now from their own IP than from things they copy.