Richard Kuslan of Asia Business Intelligence wrote an excellent ‘Brief Introduction to Intellectual Property Rights in China’, which consists of the speech he gave at the World Trade Week. It starts with an interesting anectode, he experienced himself: An American auto parts maker finds out that his trademark is infringed, and that car parts under his brand name are made in South Korea and sold, not in the US but in China. The attitude of “Mr. Liu” in this anecdote is telling that he is interested in foreign branded products that can persuade Chinese consumers that they are buying a genuine foreign (in this case American) product, rather than that “it had to be made by the company that actually owned or had been granted rights to manufacture the popular brand.“
Another interesting anectode Kuslan cannot confirm but deems plausible: “A Chinese auto parts maker exported product made in its Chinese factories to be re-packaged outside of China and then re-imported as so-called “genuine foreign-made” imported product.“
After these two appetizers Kuslan explains why IPR matter in China, expounds on an IPR strategy and the different ways to enforce IPR in China. Read Kuslan’s article here.
