Must Read Monday: China Should Change Its Perspective From Engineer To Marketeer

From an engineer's to
a marketeer's perspective,
one bridge too far?
Photo: Danny Friedmann

Malcolm Moore wrote a great article for The Telegraph about China's challenges to transform its industries from the world's manufacturers to the world's innovators, and how this good be a boon for some British companies. Read here.

Mr Moore wrote about the challenge suppliers to foreign companies, such as Foxconn, face:

"These Chinese companies are more confident, but they are led by engineers," said Geoff McCormick, the head of Alloy, a design firm that has been active in China for decades. "These firms are now being asked to be brands and not just engineering-led. But they have no track record at creation.They are happy to spend money, but only if they think there will be a return. So these are very difficult decisions for Chinese chief executives to make," he said."

And of course foreign companies will not be amused when their supplier starts to make their own competitive products under their own trademark. In some law firms there is the phenomenon of applying so called Chinese walls (information barriers), to separate one part of the firm which is representing one party from another part of the firm which is representing another party with contrary interests. It is highly doubtful whether Chinese walls can effectively be applied during the manufacturing process of a supplier/competitor.

For all foreign companies that complain about bad intellectual property in China. As long as Chinese companies copy the products of foreign companies, their problems are quite limited and can be solved or mitigated by using the enforcement routes effectively. The real challenge starts when they offer a better designed product under a more attractive brand. Legitimate competition is the real challenge.

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Are Intellectual Property Rights A Subspecies of Human Rights?

Damian Reece, Head of Business of The Telegraph was commenting David Cameron's trip to China. According to Mr Reece his timing to talk about human rights was wrong and therefore counterproductive. Instead, writes Mr Reece, he should have focused on intellectual property rights related problems in China. Read here.

Mr Reece is most certainly right that timing when talking about human rights can be of key importance. But this applies equally well for bringing up the subject of intellectual property rights. When, if ever, is it a good time to point with an accusatory finger to an official of another country in public about a sensitive issue, such as human rights or intellectual property rights? It is understandable that an politicians want to be transparent toward their consitituency about their critique in regard to another country. Mr Reece also suggests that human rights and intellectual property rights are completely separate issues. Are they? This is an interesting issue.

Professor Daniel Gervais wrote an interesting article about it. He describes the two schools of thought about the topic: cohabitation (conflict) model and compatibility model. In the cohabitation the negative impacts of IP on human rights are emphasised, such as the possible restrictions on the expression of free speech, problematic access to medicines etc. While the compatibility model stresses that the two go hand in hand.

Read Professor Gervais' article 'Intellectual Property and Human Rights: Learning to Live Together' (March 1, 2008) for the book with the same name, edited by Paul L. C. Torremans, published by Kluwer, here.

With Professor Gervais and also with Professor William Alford (who wrote in his famed 'To Steal a Book Is An Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilizatation' that the rule of law is a precondition for private rights, such as IP) I think the latter theory has most merit.

Are intellectual property rights a subspecies of human rights?

Professor Peter K. Yu advocates a human rights framework for intellectual property, read his research paper 'Reconceptualizing Intellectual Property Interests in A Human Rights Framework' (2007), here.

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