preview

IPR Enforcement In China Case Study

Decent Essays

American firms must form more joint ventures with Chinese business entities to address the longstanding intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement problems in China. To incentive their formation, the United States and China should create a bilateral agreement with benefits for joint ventures. About 86-90% of all IP protected goods sold in China have been illegally copied. As a result, U.S. industries lose billions of dollars and thousands of jobs per year. Local Chinese businesses have a vested interest in the counterfeiting industry, so China is unlikely to support IP-protection until incentives change. China does not consider IP-protection a priority because it is a net importer of IP-protected goods. Many local communities …show more content…

For example, General Motors (GM) partnered with Chinese manufacturers in 1997 to produce their vehicles in China, giving China 66% ownership in the combined venture. As a result, GM can outsource manufacturing to China and cut down costs, while Chinese manufacturers earn technological transfer and a share of profits. A bilateral agreement that encourages joint ventures between the U.S. and China will also help to foster a culture of IPR enforcement in China. Intellectual property lawyer Frank Lin attributes China’s dismissive attitude towards IP protection to China’s recent emergence from Communism, as private property rights in China have only existed for one generation. Joint ventures will help to accelerate a shift in cultural attitudes. China might object to a bilateral agreement encouraging joint ventures because it would place purely domestic Chinese firms at a relative economic disadvantage. However, to persuade China to adopt an agreement, the U.S. could point out that China cannot continue to depend on selling low-value-added goods to Western consumers for economic growth. As PRC officials have stated, China must shift from an export-led to a consumption-based economy by harvesting domestic demand from its growing middle class. Joint ventures would allow China to produce goods domestically for consumption rather than export. Some may object by claiming that a bilateral agreement provision for joint

Get Access