Adam Smith of the World Trademark Review wrote an article that put a few of the actual news events into perspective.: The news of the US customs that the People’s Republic of China is number one origin of counterfeit goods seized in the US, Chinese ministers that held a meeting (12 January 2009) on the country’s National Intellectual Property Strategy, about which I wrote ‘Feasible commitments or Road to nowhere paved with good intententions‘.
Mr Smith asked yours truly whether this recent meeting of Chinese ministers will do anything to tackle the huge problem of counterfeiting?
My answer: The Chinese ministers might feel that their hands are tied. On the one hand they want to enforce intellectual property rights, but on the other they do not want to increase unemployment and cause social unrest by putting whole villages out of work that sustain on the manufacturing of counterfeit products. This is a fortiori so, because of the economic downturn.
Well the last sentence was not published, but is relevant I think. Read Mr Smith’s World Trademark Review article here.
