China is improving intellectual property rights

Monday, 13 February 2012

China is improving intellectual property rights

Ian Harvey

25 November 2008 | EN | 中文

Flickr/jk5854

Contrary to popular opinion, China has made good progress on intellectual property (IP) rights in the last 20 years, says Ian Harvey.

IP rights for foreigners in China are of good standard and quicker to obtain than in the European Union. And a 20-year lifetime patent is ten per cent of the price of patents in the Group of Eight countries.

But China is a huge country, so the quality of courts and respect for IP law varies, says Harvey. Corruption is part of the problem, especially in the least developed provinces. But in 2004, over 90 per cent of patent litigation cases brought by foreigners were decided in favour of the foreign patent holder — compared with 35 per cent in the United States.

Many of the IP problems experienced by Western companies in China are caused by a lack of understanding, says Harvey. For example, many do not register their rights locally — so they have no "right" to enforce. He says that foreign companies must have IP representation on the ground to better understand local processes and speed up approvals.

Link to full article in China Dialogue

Add your comment

This is your network: share your views on any of our articles by adding your comments.

Comment

You need to be signed in to post a comment or to email a consenting comment author. Please sign in or sign up.

Email me when someone responds to the discussion

All comments are subject to approval and we reserve the right to edit comments containing inappropriate/unsuitable language. SciDev.Net holds copyright for all material posted on the website. Please see terms of use for further details.

All SciDev.Net material is free to reproduce providing that the source and author are appropriately credited. For further details see Creative Commons.

Back to Opinions
To the top