supreme court judge jiang zhipei attended the round table held by managing intellectual property in beijing on sep. 14, 2004. he joined the discussion with zheng chengsi, wen xikai, shi xiao mei and james haynes. emma barraclough asia editor presided the meeting.

i am honored that i was invited by the managing intellectual property to attend the ip roundtable dialogue meeting. i am also happy have the chance to meet some old and new friends here.

i will give a few my points for the topics and perhaps show a short overview of the latest developments in intellectual property rights protection in china.

as we knew when western people discuss matters they like speak directly and specifically they are facing the problems and want to deal with them. i enjoy the style of speaking. usually chinese like to show some background and abstract matters first then answer the questions, which people want to know.

therefore when i answer a mail from a llb student at the university of new south wales, he asked what do you see as deficiencies of, or problems with the current copyright laws in china (for example: maybe issues with enforcement)? what is (if there are any to begin with) the judiciary’s (or your) view towards these deficiencies or problems and what would your recommendations be to rectify these deficiencies or problems? i wrote first:  there is a background that i think, china still is a developing country with the most populations in the world. it develops rapidly recently year but the development have not been evenly and balanced, comparing city and country or the eastern china and western china, etc. china is facing many problems and big challenges.  many people’s living standard is not good and they are very concerning the only thing that is the economy development in their hometown.  under the above situation we could discuses the issues of protection for ipr in china better and thoughtfully. perhaps some foreign companies need much more patience.

frankly speaking, the big deficiencies are consciousness or knowledge of copyright law for people and society, then enforcement although the situation has been changed a lot and the legal system for ip protection has been working well. for example china court system handles around 15000 all kinds cases each year, including civil, criminal and administrative cases. many chinese have known ip right including copyright and china has set up a nice legal system of protection for ip right. copyright piracy and counterfeit still exist everywhere in many cities. so many persons do not think that the ip is a kind of property. parts of the market are not usually in order. the administrative enforcing is weak sometimes and most of the ip owner also does not like to sue piracy to the court. they think so complicated of the procedure.

to be a judge, especially a supreme court judge, i know my obligation and the importance for china to enforce the ip law. perhaps ip could be a kind of power or engine to improve the development in china nowadays and in the future. it is not only for building an ip bridge between china and foreign countries but also for improving chinese living standard. i have seen the huge changes than before and bright view in the future.

in recent years, china courts have heard a number of civil, criminal and administrative cases related to the protection of intellectual property and tried according to china’s ip laws revised newly in recent years.

statistics reveal that from 2000 to 2003, 22340 civil ip cases and 1369 criminal ip cases and 714 administrative ip cases have already been concluded at all levels of courts in china. 722 individual were sentenced to criminal punishment. the cases included patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret cases, all kind of ip cases.

this statistics indicates that one hand china is facing ipr serious infringement challenges on the other hand china judicial system or ipr enforcement system is working actively and making people be aware intellectual property which is a kind of important property in china now… 

when discussed the topic of deterring counterfeiters someone put some questions forward. china has drafted new thresholds for bringing criminal actions against counterfeiters. while ip owners have welcomed these, are they going to be effective enough? it seems that the thresholds will be based on the value of the counterfeit goods, not the genuine ones. why have they done this? will it be a sufficient deterrence?

judge jiang said: yes, send more people counterfeiters in prison that is a way for deterring counterfeiters. china has drafted new criminal interpretation which will be finished and in public. it has been drafted of five versions. i hope the thresholds will be based on the value of the genuine goods. there are two cares in drafting: one is put too many people in prison farther more china have much more other serious crimes and social problems. another one is the balance with other money crimes and part of them based on the value of illegal profits usually.

in my view take the counterfeiters to criminal procedure and punishment in prison and finance but not too long or serious in prison.  …..