USCIB’s China Subcommittee, chaired by Clarence Kwan (Deloitte & Touche), devoted its March 3 meeting almost exclusively to the critical challenge of protecting intellectual property rights.  As with most of USCIB’s work on China, the meeting focused on how best to utilize the OECD’s broad outreach to the country to promote continued improvement in the business climate.

Elaine Wu (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) discussed China's progress on enforcing IPRs, which she called poor despite the country’s commitment under its 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization.  She also outlined the scope of the counterfeiting problem.  On average, 20 percent or more of all consumer goods sold in China are counterfeit, and 90 to 96 percent of all movies, video games, recordings and software are pirated.  Total losses to legitimate business may be as high as $25 billion annually.

For Beijing to achieve its goal of sustainable economic development – and for foreign investors to continue to take part in China's growing prosperity – it clearly must make progress to adequately protect IPRs.  Rick Johnson (Arnold & Porter) noted that the OECD currently works with over 20 Chinese ministries and agencies across a wide range of policy areas, so it is well positioned to offer its expertise on complex, multifaceted problems such as IPR enforcement.

At the OECD IPR workshops in Beijing from April 20-23, Takaya Ishida (Mitsubishi Electric), who chairs BIAC’s Technology and Industry Committee, will lead a ten-member business delegation to lend the perspective of business to the proceedings, and BIAC planned to submit a statement outlining business's goals for the workshops.

Look for a report on the results of the April OECD workshops in the next issue of USCIB’s newsletter.