Besides, president Xi Jinping and China’s richest man Wang Jianlin of Dalian Wanda, Jack Ma (马云), Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group visited the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Ma talks IP, will he walk IP?
The Alibaba Group, which includes Taobao, TMall and Alibaba, was identified in the USTR’s Special 301 Report of 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 for facilitating the sale of counterfeit goods to consumers and businesses. Some measures and assurances were taken against counterfeit products. For this Taobao
was removed from the List of Notorious Markets in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. However, in 2016 Taobao returned to this list, see here (pages 12-13).
Earlier in the year, Alibaba was kicked out of the International Anti-Counterfeiting Alliance after a membership of one month (13 April 2016 to 13 May 2016). Read Rishiki Sadam, ‘Anti-Counterfeiting group suspends Alibaba’s membership’, Reuters, 13 May 2016, available here. But now Alibaba has started its own alliance: Tom Brennan wrote on 16 January on Alizila (Alibaba’s news site) that Alibaba launches ‘Big Data Anti-Counterfeiting Alliance’, see here.
18 January 2017, Ma was interviewed by NY Times’ Andrew Sorkin at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Sorkin: “One of the critiques is, as you know, and it continues to linger around Alibaba, is the piracy issue. This is an IP issue and it is an issue all over China, but you take the brunt of lot of it.” Ma: “Yeah.” Sorkin: “How much progress have you made in your mind, and how do you think about some of the regulatory bodies including in the U.S. that continue to critisize Alibaba for these issues?”
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