Obama Endorses Fake Blackberry? Yea, right...

Jason Dean and Ellen Zhu of China Journal of the WSJ, have a nice post about a rip-off version of Blackberry called Blockberry which pretends in an advertisement to be endorsed by the president of the USA. Read here. I ask myself why did they not call the apparatus Obamaberry in the first place?

Thank you Sir CH of Mobimania (new site will be up soon)

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Must Read Monday: "Shan Zhai Ji" in Google.cn Most Searched List

Sky Canaves and Juliet Ye of the Wall Street Journal's China Journal Blog dealt with the top ten lists of Google.cn 2008. Although most Chinese use Baidu, and Google is used by some of the higher educated Chinese, the most searched terms can give an indication of what is hot and what is not in China. Read the China Journal article here.

In the category "Most asked questions": Number 1. , unsurprisingly, given the enormous impact on China's society, was: What is melamine? Interestingly also on number 8 another question had also to do with substandard, counterfeit products: What is Shan Zhai Ji?

Ok, everything that shows up in a Google top ten is a trend. But what does this trend mean? So what means Shan Zhai Ji 山寨机? This is literally: Mountain Bandit Machine, and is a a knickname for cell/mobile phones with copied design and functions of branded cell/mobile phones offered for a much lower price, without permission of the brand owners.

According to Candy Yang and Lisa Li of China Youthology, which is "catching the pulse of Chinese youth", Shan Zhai Ji has developed into a subculture which can be defined as:

• Enjoying technology for a low price;
• Satisfaction with the level of technology and innovation of small bandit factories, which meets Chinese youth need to experience new technology and new functions and some humour;
• Pride for unpretentious, low quality low price products.
• Shan Zhai Ji might look vulgar and ‘out-dated’, but are considered cool and interesting by some youth.

Ms Yang and Ms Li did an informal survey about who is buying these Shan Zhai Ji products. The outcome is: creative youth, technology geeks and guys. In marketing terms the important group of early adopters. In other words: the opposite of brand chasing as the title of the article rightly put is, read the China Youthology article here. Conclusion: counterfeit trademarks and pirated copyright in China is not only caused by supply but also by demand. Brand holders need to work on both sides.

An example of a Shan Zhai Ji, you can see below a video of the iOrange, oops iOrgane. It has some extra functions compared to those of the iPhone.

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Hu Jintao And The Three Supremes Or Do You Rather Listen To Diana Ross?

Intellectual Property Law in China, of course, is not an insulated part of Chinese Law. A fortiori, it is an integral part of it. So those who are interested in IPR in China, could take notice to China's legal reforms of the last thirty years.

Ms Sky Canaves, lead writer for the WSJ's China Journal, visited the Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong Thursday to give the highlights Mr Jerome Cohen's speech. Mr Cohen is a China Legal Expert, author, professor and Of Counsel for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP.

In her article Ms Canaves reports what Mr Cohen said about the theory advocated by China's president Hu Jintao since December last year, called: 'The Three Supremes', which undermines a rule of law, at least from a Western perspective:

"The three supremes are, in descending order: the party, society and… the constitution and the laws. The new supreme court president has said with respect to death penalty cases, for example, that the feelings of the masses are number one, when courts have to make decisions about whether people live or die. Number two is social conditions, and number three is the legal law. This has demoralized many professionally oriented members of this rising legal class [and they have been] subject to intensive political indoctrination in the theory of three supremes."

This does not bode well, also in relation to the impartiality and independency of the IPR law judgements, that might not decide about life and death situations, but certainly can have a crucial impact on China's society.

Read Ms Canaves' interesting article here.

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Wall Street Journal Blog Quotes IP Dragon in "Best of the China Blogs"

Ms Sky Canaves is the lead writer of 'China Journal', a great blog about "How China is changing - and changing the world" for the Wall Street Journal. She also runs the 'Best of the China Blogs', a daily look at what she and her colleagues are reading. Today IP Dragon was happy and honoured to learn that Ms Canaves mentioned IP Dragon's article 'Shanghai Signboards: We Sell Only Real Products, Really ...' about genuine signboards in Shanghai.

Read Ms Canaves' 'Best of the China blogs: September 11', here.

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