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China Announces Punishments For Intellectual-Property Theft (bloomberg.com)
China has announced an array of punishments that could restrict companies' access to borrowing and state-funding support over intellectual-property theft. The news comes after the G20 Summit in Argentina, where the Trump Administration agreed to hold off on tariff action for at least 90 days as they negotiate to resolve specific U.S. complaints. Bloomberg reports: China set out a total of 38 different punishments to be applied to IP violations, starting this month. The document, dated Nov. 21, was released Tuesday by the National Development and Reform Commission and signed by various government bodies, including the central bank and supreme court. China says violators would be banned from issuing bonds or other financing tools, and participating in government procurement. They would also be restricted from accessing government financial support, foreign trade, registering companies, auctioning land or trading properties. In addition, violators will be recorded on a list, and financial institutions will refer to that when lending or granting access to foreign exchange. Names will be posted on a government website. "This is an unprecedented regulation on IP violation in terms of the scope of the ministries and severity of the punishment," said Xu Xinming, a researcher at the Center for Intellectual Property Studies at China University of Political Science and Law. The newly announced punishments are "a security net of IP protection" targeting repeat offenders and other individuals who aren't in compliance with the law, he said.
will find some negative spin to this
China Announces Punishments For Intellectual-Property Theft
Yawn ... call me when they are enforcing this regardless of the nationality of the owner of the stolen IP. The way things are at the moment China benefits from rigorous patent enforcement in the west but Chinese companies enjoy considerable priority and get massive preferential treatment over foreign ones when it comes to patent enforcement on Chinese soil. There is no reason to believe IP enforcement will be any different.
No country truly benefits from IP. All it is, especially the forever minus X days/minutes/seconds kind, the restriction of reuse without any benefit to society as a whole. The best argument those that support it can come up with is "It allows recoup of development costs." for an actual reason and "No-one else would do it otherwise" as a an excuse.
The problem with the former is most costs, especially in the patent arena, are paid for by public funds. For copyright, the costs are entirely based on the scope of the work and as such can be scaled down to fit within the budget, even in the case of live performances. For trademarks, these are completely optional, and only the ones people directly associate with your business are the ones that need and are worth defending. Today, many things are trademarked for stupid and or law enforcement overlap reasons.
The problem with the latter is development can be done by true artists / scientists with a passion for their work. Often by great sacrifice on their part. Necessity is also a valid counter to the latter. The excuse only holds water in complete isolation, and fails to take into account that there are people who would do something for reasons other than money / greed.
Finally IP doesn't take into account how nature works. The ability to copy and reuse information, i.e. intelligence, is baked into the universe at a very fundamental level. The only way that IP works is if you can get others to agree not to do something the universe gives them the ability to do by default, or if you can easily kill them if they do. That's the whole point of the saying "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." It's an acknowledgement of this universal fact that exists through out human history. The very fact that people base their prosperity entirely on imaginary property, only makes it easier to impoverish said people. Especially if they exist in competition with others.
Here's hoping the IP non-sense will end soon. We're all just wasting time and resources fighting a losing battle otherwise.
So, the Chinese government has laid out punishments to be meted out by the Chinese government. However, the real meat of the any punishment depends on who gets to determine guilt and mete out punishment. I assume that the Chinese government would reserve that right for themselves, as would any sovereign nation. If so, can we expect any change from the current situation? If the US government determines that Huawei is guilty of stealing IP, would the Chinese government even bother to consider any punishments, or would they bog down any investigation in bureaucratic maneuvering or assign blame to individual scapegoats instead of the accused Chinese companies.