China Fades on Intellectual Property Cooperation

Beijing, China, October 25, 2007--China pulled back from some areas of cooperation with the United States on protecting intellectual property rights after the United States filed grievances with the World Trade Organization over the country's lack of IPR protections, American officials said October 24.

Since the two U.S. filings with the WTO in April, "our bilateral relationships with our counterpart offices in China have suffered," Jon W. Dudas, the U.S. Commerce Department undersecretary for intellectual property, told a business forum on intellectual property in Beijing.

Dudas said the United States' requests in April for WTO dispute resolution on two major IPR cases "was not intended as a substitute for bilateral cooperation on a full range of issues. Rather, the mechanism is supposed to help resolve specific disputes that have not been solved bilaterally."

Yet, since the dispute cases were filed, he said, Chinese officials have slackened in their cooperative efforts to beef up China's IPR protections and legal framework, suggesting instead that all bilateral talks on the issue should be made through the global trade body. Specifically, said Dudas, China has rebuffed an American government request for a new meeting of the IPR working group of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade.

Dudas said he believes reluctance to engage in the issue is a misstep on China's part and he urged Chinese leaders to return to negotiations, not simply wait for WTO rulings on the dispute cases.

Dudas, also head of the U.S. Patent Office, noted that Chinese patent applications in the United States have skyrocketed, showing that Chinese innovators are eager to protect their own intellectual property.

"That's evidence of the need for further engagement," said Dudas.

He said that rather than seeing a decline in IPR violations in recent months, there is some evidence that the number of infringements has increased.