China’s new IP rights protections fall short: Biden’s trade rep

The Biden administration urged China to do more to respect the intellectual property of US firms, signalling that the US will maintain pressure applied under Donald Trump to crack down on commercial crimes ranging from IP theft to counterfeiting and digital piracy.

President Joe Biden’s administration urged China to do more to respect the intellectual property of American companies, signaling the U.S. will maintain pressure applied under Donald Trump to crack down on commercial crimes ranging from IP theft to counterfeiting and digital piracy. The Trade Representative’s office in Washington kept China on its “priority watchlist” of nations whose practices require monitoring. It noted that China’s patent, copyright and criminal law has been amended in the past year. “However, these steps toward reform require effective implementation and also fall short of the full range of fundamental changes needed to improve the IP landscape in China,” the report released Friday stated. The annual review found that the pandemic has worsened some intellectual-property protection problems, given the accelerated shift to online shopping. The USTR also highlighted a move in recent months by Chinese courts that “broadly prohibit right holders from asserting their patents anywhere else in the world,” and expressed concern about comments from President Xi Jinping “about promoting the extraterritorial application of China’s IP law.”