China Cheating on Intellectual Property?

After the American Revolution Americans copied British intellectual property–including copyrighted materials–shamelessly, much to the indignation of the Brits. After World War II Japan copied American goods and we complained bitterly about Japanese patent infringement.  For many years it was said that the Japanese were good at copying things but not inventing them. 

Recently, we've heard similar complaints about the Chinese–for whom the whole idea of "intellectual property" is a completely new idea.  Considering that China invented most of the basic devices that we use today, we should have waited a little longer before complaining. What a difference a few years have made, as the stories below demonstrate. 

It has also been an article of faith in the West that either Capitalism or "democracy" (or both) are essential prerequisites for innovation. Then China started inventing things again–after 200 years of Western invasion and civil strife–so new excuses must be invented.  Even the squabbles (and myths) about intellectual property are gradually passing into history. One of the leading foreign law firms recently ran this article in The China Law Blog:

Doing Business In China. Chamber of Commerce Survey Says:  It’s Not Such A Bad Thing.

By Dan Harris on May 8th, 2012

Finally getting around to reading AmCham’s 2012 China Business Climate Survey Report and the news/numbers are actually pretty good.  The numbers are not as good as last year’s, but considering the overall global economic situation, they are still quite good.  Some highlights: 92% of respondents forecast that their China 2012 revenues will either stay the same or surpass their 2011 revenues.  76% forecast they will increase.

39% report that their operating margins in China exceed their worldwide margins and an additional 29% report that they are “comparable.”

66% report that their primary goals and strategies for China are to “produce goods or services in China for the China market.”  This number is up 8% from 2010.

63% of those respondents who brought an IP infringement action in a Chinese court were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with “the level of cooperation from the Chinese courts.” 

And you probably remember this headline:

Chinese Supercomputer Wrests Title From U.S.

A Chinese scientific research center has built the fastest supercomputer ever made, replacing the United States as maker of the swiftest machine, and giving China bragging rights as a technology superpower. Although the official list of the top 500 fastest machines, which comes out every six months, is not due to be completed by Mr. Dongarra until next week, he said the Chinese computer "blows away the existing No. 1 machine." He added, "We don't close the books until Nov. 1, but I would say it is unlikely we will see a system that is faster." The race to build the fastest supercomputer has become a source of national pride as these machines are valued for their ability to solve problems critical to national interests in areas like defense, energy, finance and science... And typically, research centers with large supercomputers are magnets for top scientific talent, adding significance to the presence of the machines well beyond just cranking through calculations. [This was accomplished using off-the-shelf components and an extremely innovative Chinse backplane].

And this one?

HIGH-SPEED TRAIN
PARTS FOR GERMANY

Big high-speed train parts wait for shipment at a port in Tianjin yesterday. This was the first batch of big high-speed train parts China CNR Corp made for Siemens. It is China's first export of such components to Europe. The combined value of components China CNR will supply to Siemens this year will total 11.55 million euros (US$14.35 million).

And this (amazing) one?
A Chinese is employed by Bosch to spy on a British technology company?!!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2222536/Bosch-sent-mole-British-rival-Dyson-steal-details-revolutionary-digital-motors.html

China Poised to Lead World in Patent Filings

By DAVID BARBOZA SHANGHAI — Having passed Germany (exports), Japan (gross domestic product) and the United States (auto sales) over the past year, China is now poised to lead the world in yet another category: patent application filings. A new study released this week by Thomson Reuters says that by 2011 China will most likely pass the United States and Japan in new patent applications.(NYT)

Or this one?:

China's Huawei Seeks Most 2008 International Patents

Jan 27 (Reuters) - Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL], China's largest telecoms equipment maker, was the world's top international patent seeker last year, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday. It was the first time a Chinese company topped the list of applicants for World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) patent protection, which the Netherlands' Philips Electronics (PHG.AS) had dominated for about a decade.

Or this?: 

The Economist's Innovation Awards Recognise Huawei

(Friday, Oct 22, 2010) 46% of Huawei’s 95,000 staff are engaged in R&D activities. Huawei is respected for the quality and innovation of its products: it topped the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s 2008 rankings for international patent applications, and was placed second in the 2009 rankings. Commenting on the award decision, Tom Standage, Digital Editor at The Economist said, “Huawei is the firm that is overturning the widely held preconception that Chinese companies are merely imitators rather than innovators.”

Or this, from MIT's Technology Review?: 

Chinese Physicists Smash Distance Record For Teleportation

The ability to teleport photons through 100 kilometres of free space opens the way for satellite-based quantum communications, say researchers

Or this, from Rice University?

Chinese Researchers Power Line-Voltage Light Bulb With Nanotube Wire

ScienceDaily (Sep. 7, 2011) — Cables made of carbon nanotubes are inching toward electrical conductivities seen in metal wires, and that may light up interest among a range of industries, according to Rice University researchers.

A Rice lab made such a cable from double-walled carbon nanotubes and powered a fluorescent light bulb at standard line voltage -- a true test of the novel material's ability to stake a claim in energy systems of the future.

The work appears this week in the Nature journalScientific Reports.

Highly conductive nanotube-based cables could be just as efficient as traditional metals at a sixth of the weight, said Enrique Barrera, a Rice professor of mechanical engineering and materials science. They may find wide use first in applications where weight is a critical factor, such as airplanes and automobiles, and in the future could even replace traditional wiring in homes.

The cables developed in the study are spun from pristine nanotubes and can be tied together without losing their conductivity. To increase conductivity of the cables, the team doped them with iodine and the cables remained stable. The conductivity-to-weight ratio (called specific conductivity) beats metals, including copper and silver, and is second only to the metal with highest specific conductivity, sodium.

Yao Zhao, who recently defended his dissertation toward his doctorate at Rice, is the new paper's lead author. He built the demo rig that let him toggle power through the nanocable and replace conventional copper wire in the light-bulb circuit.

Zhao left the bulb burning for days on end, with no sign of degradation in the nanotube cable. He's also reasonably sure the cable is mechanically robust; tests showed the nanocable to be just as strong and tough as metals it would replace, and it worked in a wide range of temperatures. Zhao also found that tying two pieces of the cable together did not hinder their ability to conduct electricity.

The few centimeters of cable demonstrated in the present study seems short, but spinning billions of nanotubes (supplied by research partner Tsinghua University) into a cable at all is quite a feat, Barrera said. The chemical processes used to grow and then align nanotubes will ultimately be part of a larger process that begins with raw materials and ends with a steady stream of nanocable, he said. The next stage would be to make longer, thicker cables that carry higher current while keeping the wire lightweight. "We really want to go better than what copper or other metals can offer overall," he said.

The paper's co-authors are Tsinghua researcher Jinquan Wei, who spent a year at Rice partly supported by the Armchair Quantum Wire Project of Rice University's Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology; Robert Vajtai, a Rice faculty fellow in mechanical engineering and materials science; and Pulickel Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and professor of chemistry and chemical and biomolecular engineering.

The Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America, the Department of Energy and Air Force Research Laboratory supported the project.

My point being that China has only just begun to stir. We can expect much, much more from the old dragon who, like Rip van Winkle, has been asleep for two centuries...