13.02.10
A one weeks ago, I did a post entitled, No IP Enforcement In China. That Cannot Be Constant , in which I talked about how it is just not true that Chinese courts will not carry out a foreign company's intellectual property rights against a Chinese defendant.
I then discussed a just out high profile and high damage case won by a British tea kettle circle, ,and concluded that post by saying that the "next time someone says China never enforces manifest rights held by foreigners, you tell them that cannot be true.
Seems I am not the only one who thinks so as the Madden Street Journal just ran an by Jones Day attorney Benjamin Bai, entitled, " Yes, China Does Conserve Intellectual Property: Multinational companies just exigency to take better advantage of opportunities to defend their patents. "
The article notes that "the spitting image isn't as bleak as you might think" and that [t]he key is for foreign businesses to understand how IP shelter works in China and to take better advantage of the protections that eke out a living." It then notes how patent applications in China grew to 947,000 in 2009 from 252,000 in 2002, making the Chinese Apparent Office the third-busiest patent authority in the world, after Japan and the Mutual States. China also is now the most litigious country in the world for IP disputes—with 24,406 suits filed as compared to about 8,000 in the U.S.
Source: China Law Blog (blog)