China is Getting Serious About IP Enforcement

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog ran a post today, entitled, "Is China Getting Serious About Patent Enforcement?"  The post highlights a Fortune Magazine article that came out today, entitled, "China Goes A-Courtin."  The Fortune article refers to the patent infringement lawsuit brought by Shenzen's Netac Technology in the United States against U.S. company PNY Technologies.  We previously blogged on that case in "Man Bites Dog -- Chinese Company Sues in U.S. for Patent Protection. 

Fortune Magazine sees this lawsuit as a potential turning point in intellectual property enforcement in China, because, "only when Chinese companies begin protecting their own patents, copyrights, and trademarks will the notoriously unreliable Chinese courts and enforcement authorities become vigilant in protecting foreign companies' IP." 

The article goes on to talk about how American companies have been "less vigilant about protecting their rights in China than they could -- and probably should -- have been. Under applicable treaties, U.S. companies have about 30 months from the time they file a patent application in the U.S. to seek corresponding patent protection under Chinese law."  Many American companies, however, wrongly decided the Chinese market was either not big enough or so unlikely to enforce patent rights as not to warrant registering them. 

Patent attorney, Anthony Chen, talks about a "major American IT company" which unsuccessfully tried to collect patent royalties from a Chinese company on U.S. telecom patents it had never protected under Chinese law.  "You don't have patents in China," the Chinese company responded. "It's not that we don't respect your IP. You do not respect your IP."

Bottom Line, once again:  If you expect to protect your IP in China, register them in China.