All Clichés But Still True: Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement in China Leaves Room For Improvement

France24 reports in a 2 minutes 51 seconds video (from April 2008) about the rampant violations of IPR in China and the insufficient measures to tackle the problem. One big déjà vu all over again...

We see the familiar in this short video:

• the inevitability of a visual spectacle of destruction of counterfeit DVDs;
• a Chinese official determined to enforce IPRs (Mr Lin Binjie, Deputy Director, National Anti-Pornography and Anti-Illegal Publications Work Group);
• Silk Street Market and some mini-interviews with pedestrians about fake products;
• An IPR right holder, in this case Ms Fang Fang, Chief Representative of luxury goods producer Pierre Cardin China tells that she is called "tout les temps" by licensees that have found a counterfeiter and it is operating. Pierre Carin is then sending a legal team. Result: counterfeiting stops there, but the counterfeiters set up shop somewhere else;
• James Zimmerman, Chairman American Chamber of Commerce in China says that intellectual property is not only important for foreigners but for Chinese in China as well;
• then more images of hawkers and markets with counterfeit products emerge.

That was April 2008, Pre-Olympic Games. However, the question is whether the level of intellectual property enforcement is still as high in Beijing after the Olympic Games, let alone in China, because of the financial crisis.