State Council Issues Updated White Paper on Intellectual Property Rights

In April, the State Council issued an updated White Paper on intellectual property (IP) protection. The document, entitled "New Progress on China's Protection of Intellectual Property" (read it in English and in Chinese) is the latest official statement on this issue and covers the period since 1995 when the last White Paper was issued. The State Council has compiled statistics on IP protection in China that seek to support the claim that protection of IP is a high priority for the Chinese government. The Chinese government's legislative and enforcement activities occur in the context of domestic rates of infringement exceeding 90 percent for many products, as documented by the investigations of a number of trade associations (see page 4 for copyright industries). The White Paper frames IP infringement as a global problem about which China is concerned, while acknowledging at the end of the discussion that infringement is serious in some areas.

Additional background on the White Paper is available here and here (both in Chinese).