32 Senators Urge Vice-Premier State Council to Fix IPR and Indigenous Innovation Policy in China

32 U.S. senators have sent an open letter to Wang Qishan, China's Vice-Premier of the State Council. They urge him to use the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) to address the problems U.S. companies face in regard to:

• Intellectual Property Rights in China;
• China's policy to favour indigenous innovation and not signing the World Trade Organization's Government Procurement Agreement.

Evidently the trade organisation that was created to advance the interests of the software industry Business Software Alliance (BSA) was quite successful in putting their case on the agenda:

"The United States has been raising this issue for many years, and China has repeatedly committed to take steps to address U.S. concerns. For example, in 2006, China committed in the JCCT to ensure that Chinese government agencies and state-owned enterprises use only licensed software. But China has failed to implement this commitment. We urge China to implement this commitment on a timely basis, and in a transparent manner that allows IPR holders to verify the legitimacy of the software used by these entities."

Read the bipartisan letter on the Fair Currency Coalition Blog here.