International Trade Lawmaking @ Beijing Normal University

This is the slogan on the board held high by a protesters when Bill Gates delivered his speech at Beijing University. The protester claims to be the chief representative of Linux Professional Institute (LPI). To strive for open source software, he changed his name from Wang Yang into Wang OpenSource. Microsoft responded that they respect every one’s right of speech.

This is tenth visit of Mr. Gates to China. He just received a honorary PhD from Tsinghua University.

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/p/2007-04-20/110312826613.shtml;

http://tech.sina.com.cn/gates_china/index.html

Early discovery of the suspected backdoor in Windows XP Professional version reveals the urgency of implementation of open source and regulation of governmental procurement.

http://news.wenxuecity.com/messages/200706/news-gb2312-415397.html

Since 1990s, every April has been a month of “war of words” between the USA and China on IPR disputes. In these years, angry rhetoric of discontent could be heard from both parties. But either party had ever meant business. They either commenced a new round of negotiation or threatened to each other with trade sanctions. Eventually, the disputes would end up in compromise. This year is different. USA filed the complaint against China to the WTO, specifically alleging China for ineffective IPR enforcement and restriction of importation of American culture products. Chinese government has declared that the US’s action will seriously damage the trade relationship between the two countries. The disputes, in the WTO dispute settlement procedure, is in 60-day of negotiation period. If no agreement cannot be reached, the disputes would have to be decided by a panel.

http://finance.sina.com.cn/j/20070410/14093488196.shtml

China used the first provision of the TRIPS to defend itself.

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-06-09/182613191693.shtml

60-day negotiation period expired, no agreement was reached. On August 31, US applied to set up a panel to solve the dispute. The Panel might be set up in October 2007.

http://finance.sina.com.cn/j/20070831/05143934387.shtml

A few days after Google released its pinyin input method for Chinese characters to reinforce its market penetration in China, Sohu, a leading ICT as well as a competing search engine provider, accused Google for copying its own Chinese character database and integrating it into Google’s input method. Google acknowledged that it did use the “other sources” in its character database in the phase of test and apologized to the users. Google also announced that all these sources have been removed from the database. This incidence is likely to damage Google’s market image of being innovative and non-evil.

http://tech.sina.com.cn/focus/sg_pinyin/index.shtml

Google’s response is at:
http://tech.sina.com.cn/focus/sg_pinyin/index.shtml

Chinese government is tightening the control of the Internet content. One of the measures is the Opinions on Development and Administration of Internet Music, which was published by the Ministry of Culture in December 2006. One of the principles set out by this document is to promote domestic music and creative industries.

http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2006-12-11/17481282518.shtml;

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2006-12-12/065111763951.shtm

Chinese enterprises are going overseas, so are the litigation against them. Imitation of foreign designs, brands or technologies might be a good starting-up strategy but it could become a time bomb once globalizing the business.

A couple of digital products of Chinese companies were seized at Hanover’s CeBIT2007 for patent infringement. A leading MP3 producer, Huaqi, complained that it did pay patent licensing fee for the chips and should not be charging for using the chips on products. MII has published a report to alert the domestic manufactures of intellectual property risk in the international market. A index of key technologies and important products under the independent intellectual property rights of China’s information industry has been released as a component of the national intellectual property strategy.

http://tech.sina.com.cn/it/2007-04-04/02071447415.shtml

http://tech.sina.com.cn/focus/07_CeBIT_MP3/index.shtml

Another group of German businesses are watching the Chinese competitors. Both BMW and DaimlerChrysler have sued or plan to sue the alleged copies by Chinese automakers that are entering into German market.
http://news.findlaw.com/ap/o/51/09-12-2007/4a93001192274c0a.html