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The Protection of Trademarks and Copyright in China: Law and Practice
Access Asia Ltd, March 2001
This report covers the legal framework for protection of copyright in China, as well as how such laws are applied. Coverage includes the application of copyright to all media formats. This report from Access Asia describes the considerable progress that China has made in recent years in adopting international standards of intellectual property law and also provides a perspective on the major problems that remain for businesses. The report focuses on two areas. Firstly, trademark law, which is relevant to nearly all businesses because of logos, but which is particularly important to branded consumer goods where the brand owner has invested heavily in the brand in order to command a premium price. Such companies can be severely damaged by cheap counterfeit goods of low quality. Typically, those counterfeit goods are in breach of trademark law, since they pretend to be the genuine branded article. The second area of focus is copyright law. This is an area of narrower applicability but it is of central importance to industries such as computer software and music. These are truly global industries with powerful players and because illegal copying is often both easy and very lucrative the extent of piracy is great. Breach of copyright in these cases may also involve breach of trademark as well. This report does not discuss the third main area of intellectual property law, patents, which apply to inventions and discoveries, often of a scientific or technological nature. Thus patents are of greatest importance in a different range of industries, such as pharmaceuticals. The report includes a review of the law on trademarks in China. This includes discussion of China’s international treaty obligations in this area. Also included is a review of China’s record in protecting this kind of intellectual property. Additionally, the report includes a review of the law on copyright in China, again including reference to China’s international treaty obligations and analysis of China’s record in protecting the creative industries. Finally, the report offers some conclusions covering both trademarks and copyright and prospects for the future.
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