Changzhou Global Animation Joyland Clones Offline Version Of Activision Blizzard's World of Warcraft/Starcraft

The world's first game themed entertainment park is Global Animation Joyland, in Changzhou, Jiangsu province. It cloned the American game producer Activision Blizzard's World of Warcraft (WoW) into "Terrain of Magic" and Activision Blizzard's StarCraft into "Universe of Starship" designs and made them into attractions. Adapting a copyrighted game into a real life park falls within the scope of the copyright protection of the work. It would be interesting to know if the park was discussed during the realisation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on intellectual property between the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos and the Jiangsu's Provincial People's Government of the People's Republic of China, see here. Watch the Game On Daily video below:

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Sobering Statistics Put China's Innovation Into Perspective

In the graphical perspective,
things become smaller if the distance
from the observer increases

Professor Anil Gupta and Haiyan Wang, writers of the book 'Getting China and India right', put China's innovation statistics into perspective.

Patent filings in 2008

• U.S.A. 400,769 filings
• Japan 502,054 filings
• China 203,481 filings

Gupta and Wang have a point when they argue that the Chinese inventions patented outside China are a more objective measure than the ones registered by State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO).
The most compelling statistic is the number for triadic patents or triadic patent families (patents that origin from one country but that are patented by the European Patent Office, United States Patent and Trademark Office and the Japan Patent Office).

Triadic patent families according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2008

• Europe 14,525 filings
• U.S.A. 14,399 filings
• Japan 13,446 filings
• China 473 filings

See the Compendium on Patent Statistics for 2008 here (pdf) on page 6. 

However, I would argue that these patent filings are not the best measure. Patent registrations would be a far more better indication of patent quality. 

Professor Gupta and Mr Wang wrote: in 2010 China accounted for

• 20% of the world's population
• 9% of the world's GDP
• 12% of the world's R&D expenditure
• 1% of the patent filings with or patents granted by any of the leading patent offices outside China. 
• 50 % of the China-origin patents were granted to subsidiaries of foreign multinationals   

Professor Gupta's and Mr Wang's Wall Street Journal article 'China's Innovation Is A Paper Tiger' can be read here and should not be confused with the title of my thesis 'Paper Tiger Or Roaring Dragon, China's TRIPs Implementations and Enforcement'.

UPDATE August 2, 2011: 
Joff Wild, editor of Intellectual Asset Management gives an update since 2008. In short: the growth in the number of China's triadic patent filings/grants paints a rosy picture. However China's innovation prospect is much bleaker. On this I concur with Mr Wild. Read more about the relation between innovation and intellectual property and innovation and censorship here.

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If Central Government Is Not Omnipotent Deal Directly With Provinces: USPTO Jiangsu MOU

As the last article underlines, see here, the central government of Beijing is not all powerful in China. So it makes a lot of sense that the US Patent and Trademark Office went to Jiangsu, the important coastal province to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the

According to the USPTO press release on July 21, 2011: “The purpose of this MOU is to establish a general framework for future cooperation,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos. Read more here.

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Five IP Offices: The site...

The five biggest patent offices of the world: USPTO (US), SIPO (China), EPO (EU), JPO (Japan) and KIPO (South Korea) cooperate. They have a website and you can see their common projects, here.

Hat tip to the IPKat.

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China's Impact On Intellectual Property

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is sponsoring a China-focused intellectual property "roadshow" July 23-24, 2007 in Philadephia.

Topics:

• China’s laws and regulations that may affect how a business protects and enforces its intellectual property;
• how best to protect business assets to avoid intellectual property problems in the first place;
• how to recognize when an intellectual property asset has been infringed;
• what to do if infringement occurs;
• and what the U.S. government is doing to improve the intellectual property protection and enforcement environment in China.

Read more here. If you go, please blog about it or write ipdragon at gmail dot com a few lines about it. Thanks.

Head tip to Timonthy J. Maier of Post-Grant, read more here.

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