Sage-Tips

Why does China not have copyright laws?

Not substantially so. China has signed onto both major international copyright treaties—the century-old Berne Convention and the decade-old Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, orTRIPS Agreement—which set minimum standards for copyright regulation.

What is intellectual property rights in China?

China has a complete legal system for the protection of intellectual property rights. China’s intellectual property law stipulates the legal responsibilities to be borne by anyone who violates the law, including civil liability, criminal liability and exposure to administrative sanctions.

What does stealing intellectual property mean?

Intellectual property theft involves robbing people or companies of their ideas, inventions, and creative expressions—known as “intellectual property”—which can include everything from trade secrets and proprietary products and parts to movies, music, and software.

Why is it difficult to enforce intellectual property rights in China?

Foreign firms have long complained that enforcing their intellectual property rights in China is difficult due to local judicial protectionism, challenges in obtaining evidence, small damage awards, and a perceived bias against foreign firms.

What means intellectual property?

Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce.

How common is intellectual property theft by Chinese companies?

Theft of intellectual property by Chinese companies is a major point of contention between the Trump administration and Chinese government. Just under one-third of CFOs of North America-based companies on the CNBC Global CFO Council say Chinese firms have stolen from them at some point during the past decade.

Is China protecting foreign companies’ intellectual property rights?

Chinese officials have said that protecting foreign companies’ intellectual property rights is important to China. But many of its companies appear to have missed that memo.

How does theft contribute to China’s technological progress?

But in reality, trade, foreign investment, licensing, international research collaboration, cross-border movement of experts, collection of open-source material, imitation, reverse engineering, and, yes, theft have all contributed to China’s technological progress.

Does China have a copyright infringement problem?

The government of China knows that current copyright infringements cannot be legally justified under the World Trade Organization, but it is unable or maybe even unwilling to confront the problem. That’s software. It gets even more flagrant with filmed entertainment.