Intellectual Property Rights in China

New Bunren shoes with slanted N logo

As part of my undergraduate degree, I completed a project on IPR protection and its relationship to innovation in China (the full project can be read here). In essence, my research found that widespread copying of goods  - ranging from trainers to medicine - helped promote the innovation and technological development present in China today. In China's case, imitation has bred innovation. One only need look at the Chinese 'app for everything', WeChat, to see what I mean. Initially deemed a 'Chinese WhatsApp', WeChat now encompasses much more than messaging, allowing users to book cabs, pay and find a date within the app: it is PayPal, Uber, Tinder and more, all rolled into one. Facebook has even begun to borrow some ideas from the Tencent app.
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Nevertheless, my research also found that China must now increase the protection of intellectual property as there is now sufficient domestic innovation in need of safeguarding. Indeed, the Chinese government has made an active effort to do so, cracking down on IPR infringement and increasing punishments for violators. 

Yet, fixing the counterfeit culture which has become so commonplace in China is no easy task. Take the case of New Balance, a US footwear company. Counterfeit New Balance shoes, along with other high-profile sportswear brands like Adidas and Nike, are widespread in all major cities. Unlike these other companies, however, New Balance has been battling Chinese IPR infringements since the 1990s. The brand finally enjoyed some success when, last summer, a Chinese court ruled in their favour over infringement of their their slanted N logo. Nevertheless, upon my visit to China a year after the ruling, I saw no evidence of enforcement. New Bunren continues to use the logo (as well as stock a copy of Kanye West's 'Yeezy' trainers) and the other brands, New Barlun and New Boom, follow suit. 

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Another variation of the New Balance name: New Bailun

On the other hand, when (in the name of research, of course) I paid a visit to the famous Silk Market in Beijing, I was not met with the abundance of fakes I was expecting. However, after a while I gathered that the counterfeit goods were kept hidden in camouflaged shelves on the shop floor or in warehouses near the market. Shopkeepers would show you a catalogue of available goods, disappear for a few minutes, and come back with whatever you had requested, making sure to either crouch down behind the till or draw a curtain. This was not the case a few years ago and hence suggests that there are top-down efforts in the capital to reduce the bootleg trade. 

For now, China is still a hub for pirated goods: better enforcement of IPR and a the real possibility of harsh consequences for infringement is needed if this is to change. 

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