China's IPR protection on fast track

Qiao Gangliang, vice-president of the UK-based General Electric (GE) Healthcare, was surprised to see his company win a trade secret and copyright infringement case in China within eight months last year. "It was much faster than I had expected," says Qiao, who compared the efficiency with that in the United States where he had worked as a law clerk. "As I understand, it usually takes two to three years in the United States."

The case, together with 11 other foreign-related cases, won Best Cases of IPR Protection for 2007-2008, a yearly award granted by the Quality Brands Protection Committee (QBPC) under the China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (CAEFI), in Beijing late last month. Representatives from major foreign-invested firms and intellectual property rights (IPR) protection experts say they felt China's judicial and law enforcement environment had made great progress, but much work remains to be done...

"Many foreign companies were impressed by the efficiency and transparency of our case," says Qiao. "It surprised those who had misgivings about China's IPR protection that we won a suit here and secured our damages of 900,000 yuan." The value of counterfeit goods involved in other awarded cases varied from 290,000 to 7.85 million yuan…

Sun Hailong says he and his colleagues just did an ordinary job. "We handled the GE case just as we did others," says Sun. "Foreign companies should have better knowledge of China's laws and trust in Chinese law enforcers."

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