In Focus:  Protecting Intellectual Property Across Borders

Zheng Chensi is the current Director of the Intellectual Property Center with the Chinese Academy of Social Science. He made history by bringing up one of the most curious legal cases in modern China. The defendant was a local company offering several of Professor Zheng’s books online on a for-profit basis – without obtaining the author’s permission and without paying him royalties. (The company lost the case.)

Ironically, one of Zheng’s books that the company had pirated bore this title: "Intellectual Property Enforcement in China."

While this case might illustrate that things are changing a bit, China still has a well-deserved reputation as the copycat center of the world. The list of stories about product piracy and intellectual property (IP) theft in the country seems endless and includes such prominent examples as copy Rolex watches, fake Louis Vuitton handbags, illicit Microsoft Windows clones, pirated Avatar DVDs, or unauthorized reprints of the Da Vinci Code.

This problem is by no means limited to China. Nor is it restricted to consumer markets. Fake aircraft parts and counterfeit medicines have surfaced all over the world, with countries of origin ranging from Nigeria and India to Taiwan and Singapore. Such examples may be particularly worrisome, but they represent only the tip of an iceberg of cases where stolen intellectual property damaged company profits, jeopardized brand values, and in some instances, even put lives at risk.

Niche luxury brands and industrial behemoths alike are struggling to come up with effective counterstrategies for this complex challenge. In designing such strategies, these aspects warrant particular attention:

•  Economic factors. While far from being the only contributor, the overall economic situation of a country strongly influences people’s attitudes towards IP protection. As a rule of thumb, the lesser developed the country, the higher the likelihood of IP theft and product piracy.

•  Cultural values. Although the concept of intellectual property protection is a relatively new one, related cultural attitudes anchor deep in the fabric of any society. The United Kingdom established fundamental rules for copyright and patent protection as early as the 17th century. In contrast, Chinese and Koreans, for example, have a tradition of great admiration towards ancient masters who copied the works of others and further perfected it. Some experts believe that the concept of IP protection and copyright "is the product of Western societal development ... and remains a foreign, indeed strange, concept in many other societies."

•  Legal environment. A well-established legal framework for copyright and patent protection is a requirement for membership in the World Trade Organization. In fact, as a consequence of globalization, most countries around the world have adopted these fundamental concepts in their legal systems. Nevertheless, differences between these systems can be significant and require carefully analyzing each country’s set of pertaining laws.

•  Viability and cost of legal enforcement. This is where things get most sketchy. A country such as China, which modeled its IP protection framework after the European Union’s, may have great IP protection laws. But what good are these laws if it remains hard to get local authorities to take action, judges tend to be partial to the local side, and penalties are often so low that they do little to discourage offenders? Even though things have improved greatly in this area over the last 5-10 years, such challenges remain consid- erable in China and elsewhere.

Best Practices

While any individual company's strategy must factor in local specifics, industry practices, and risks inherent to the particular markets the company serves, some recommendations apply universally:

•  Closely guard your secrets. While doing so complicates the collaboration with foreign subsidiaries or partners and potentially creates issues of trust, that price is generally worth it, especially in developing&emerging countries.

•  Secure strong legal protection. You can do so by registering copyrights, applying patents, defining trade secrets and protecting them through confidentiality agreements, etc.

•  Collaborate with local authorities and aggressively pursue perpetrators. Even in countries where there may be significant enforcement hurdles, this will make you a harder target. If nothing else, the publicity around such cases builds pressure on local governments to improve IP protection, which in this age of globalization tends to be quite effective.

Lastly, be careful not to consider intellectual property theft a one-sided issue. A historic example illustrates the point: in the early 1700's, Francois Xavier d’Entrecolles, a Jesuit missionary in China, communicated many details of Chinese porcelain making, then a closely guarded secret, to contacts in his native France, where this newly acquired know-how was quickly put to use. Chinese porcelain exports to Europe soon after declined considerably – and remained weak for more than 250 years.

This article is also available in PDF format  (requires Adobe Reader ).
 



Book Of The Month
Illicit

 

The author takes a close look at how recent globalization trends have stimulated illicit activities and businesses, from the smuggling of products, narcotics, arms, and illegal migrants, to organ-legging, sex trade, money laundering, counterfeiting, and other trafficking.

(click title for full book review)

 


Web Site Of The Month
Country Reports

 

This commercial site provides useful information for students and educators for every country in the world.

(click title to visit this web site)

 


Quote Of The Month
 

He who receives
an idea from me,
receives instruction himself without lessening mine;
as he who lights
his taper at mine,
receives light without darkening me

Thomas Jefferson

 

All of the 50 individual Country Sections from Negotiating International Business are available online  for free.

Click here to download Country Section PDF files

 

Leadership Crossroads
is a competent resource for

  • Global Business Coaching & Training
  • Negotiation Training and Assistance
  • Cross-Cultural Project Management
  • Organizational Learning and Development
  • Executive Coaching
Would you like to know
    more about us?

 

 

Managing
Projects
Across
Borders

 
 
 

   
Upcoming Workshop at UTD in Richardson, TX:
Jan 24-25 Managing International Projects

Lothar Katz is the founder of Leadership Crossroads.  He has a wealth of experience in achieving productive coopera- tion across cultures and driving business success on a global scale.
A seasoned former executive of a For­tune 500 company, he regularly interacted with employees, cus­tomers, out- sourcing partners, and third parties in more than 25 countries around the world.


Contact : info@leadershipcrossroads.com
 
Leadership CrossroadsTM, 2010

Global Business Practices:
Ten Tips for Doing Business in Cambodia

  • Company hierarchies are usually very formal and Cambodian managers can be highly authoritarian. Pay close attention to rank and status of your counterparts.
  • Realize that negotiations may take a long time in this country. Spend significant efforts to build relationships first.
  • Cambodians are strongly family-oriented.  "Is everyone well in your family?" is a good conversation opener.
  • Saving face, ie, talking and behaving in ways that make everyone look good, is very important in everything you do.
  • Negative replies are impolite.  Instead, say "maybe",
    "we will consider it", or the like.
  • Don't touch others except for handshakes, which are common only between members of the same gender.
  • Do not cross your arms over the chest as this may be read as highly aggressive.
  • Silence usually indicates that there is a problem or that a counterpart took offense.
  • While more and more Cambodians are learning English, their command of the language is often poor. Slow down and speak in simple, short sentences.
  • The Khmer Rouge genocide and its aftermath are still painful subjects for Cambodians that are best avoided, as are the country's relations to Vietnam.

Our newsletter is a bimonthly publication about all aspects of International and Cross-Cultural Business Management.  Past issues can be found in our  newsletter archive.

If this issue has been forwarded to you, would you like to subscribe to it now?

If you are a current subscriber but you do not wish to receive this newsletter in future, simply send a blank e-mail to unsubscribe@leadershipcrossroads.com.