Patent Pensées

"The pessimistic scenario [for China] calls for expansion in the...

...range, scope, and geographic reach of pirated and counterfeited industries brought about by the consolidation of production and distribution in major centers; technological advances that make piracy ever cheaper and easier; and the growing capabilities, resources and cooperation among pirate enterprises."

- Oded Shenkar, Ford Motor Company Chair in Global Business Management at the Ohio State University Fisher College of Business, in The Chinese Century: The Rising Chinese Economy and Its Impact on the Global Economy, the Balance of Power, and Your Job, 2005, p. 96.

"The optimistic scenario is for China to...

...incrementally crack down on violators as a result of pressure exerted by industrialized countries, the continuous evolution of its legal system, and the realization that the current climate puts a damper on the prospects for developing indigenous industry..."

- Oded Shenkar, Ford Motor Company Chair in Global Business Management at the Ohio State University Fisher College of Business, in The Chinese Century: The Rising Chinese Economy and Its Impact on the Global Economy, the Balance of Power, and Your Job, 2005, p. 96.

"Ordering a raid on a suspected IPR infringer...

...by an administrative enforcement agency is so simple, and so immediately gratifying, it is little wonder that such methods are by far the most popular method of dealing with IPR problems in China."

- Economist Intelligence Unit, as quoted by Andrew Mertha in The Politics of Piracy: Intellectual Property in Contemporary, 2005, p. 223. 

"It is critical that one not equate the promulgation of new law...

...with meaningful transformation of Chinese life....For although it is as yet too early to reach a definitive judgment as to the full effect of what might be termed a second generation of post-Cultural Revolution intellectual property laws, there is also no indication that these new laws are meaningfully altering prior practice in this area, even taking into account much publicized government propaganda efforts associated with their promulgation.  On the contrary, one might well contend that the very tensions that marked the PRC's first generation of intellectual property laws, as well as the post-Cultural Revolution law reform effort more generally...remain essentially unaltered in the new generation of intellectual property laws and, for that matter, the ongoing project of law reform."

- William P. Alford, Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, in  To Steal a Book Is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization, 1995, pp. 116-117.