Once Again, Be Careful What You Wish For: China Learning To Use Other Country's Patent Systems

from the this-won't-end-well dept

Fri, Oct 15th 2010 3:25am — Mike Masnick

For years and years, US executives, politicians and diplomats have been berating China for "not respecting intellectual property." And, all along, we keep warning that those same folks are not going to like it if China actually did what they're asking it to do. That's because all of these execs, politicians and diplomats are thinking with a very static view: that US patents and technology will continue to rule, and that China needs to respect those patents. And yet, as we've noted, that's not the case. China has ramped up enforcement of IP laws lately... but in almost every case it's been used to harm foreign companies (often US companies).

And now, Slashdot points us to the news that Huawei, the Chinese networking giant, has taken over the lead as filing the most international patents of any company. Just wait until American companies, whose execs complained about China "not respecting intellectual property," start getting sued in East Texas for violating Huawei's patents.

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Filed Under: china, patents

26 Comments

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Cynix, 15 Oct 2010 @ 4:04am

Payback
Yeah, ain't payback a bitch? hahahaha!!

Serve those greedy m/fs right.
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Alatar, 15 Oct 2010 @ 4:14am

Oh yeah, Huawei suing those american retarded companies
Huawei suing Microsoft and Apple for patent infringement, I want to see it. Huawei execs explaining how "they couldn't innovate wihout patents", and Microsoft/Apple execs explaining how those patents are blocking innovation (not that they aren't the ones detaining them). I'll book my plane for East Texas right now. Are tickets for the show already for sale?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2010 @ 4:30am

People know this is going to happen and those dumb people in Washington will let it happen.

China is the sole producer of rare metals in the world, that alone should send a strong message of what could happen.

Not only that China actually is offering better deals to other countries for raw materials, Africa is almost all Chinese already, eastern Europe is infatuated with China since China doesn't want any forced measures to be done, soon some people will discover that they have nothing to bargain.

Not that I like the Chinese, they will impose their on rules and have the potential to be more belligerent than the U.S. but right now they are the best commercial partner one could have since they don't enforce IP laws and don't ask for anything. They are just buying geo political power and that will be a problem to American companies in the near future.

They probably will f#$% America sometime in the near future, when they don't need it anymore.

Then I want to see those idiots that say IP is important.
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IronM@sk, 15 Oct 2010 @ 4:32am

New Reality TV Series?
Patent Wars!

Tune in next week as the Red Team and the Blue Team battle for ultimate supremacy in the courtroom.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2010 @ 4:36am

Japan 500 thousand patents
U.S. 390 thousand patents
China 203 thousand patents

Yep the plan to make others pay without doing work will be great for Asia.

And as always American companies will have their asses trashed in the global theater.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2010 @ 4:47am

The funny thing is that there is an alternative model, open source probably will lead the way out of this mess or will be something like it, something that don't depend on regulation to survive, something that breads cooperation, something that everyone can use, something that don't have artificial barriers to be able to play.
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abc gum, 15 Oct 2010 @ 4:54am

I'm on a cow
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Steve R. (profile), 15 Oct 2010 @ 5:19am

Obvious!!!
A while back, someone commented on a New York Times article, that as manufacturing abandoned the United States, that those countries would soon begin to develop/defend their own so-called intellectual property. The push for ACTA demonstrates that the US (in extorting ever greater "rights" for so-called intellectual property) is on a suicide mission. This will be a lesson in being careful about what you ask for.
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slacker525600 (profile), 15 Oct 2010 @ 5:19am

do you really think an east texas jury will rule with a foreign company?
I mean ... it's texas we are talking about here.
all of a sudden the mindset will become, well, if a foreign company came up with it, of course it was obvious.
just saying.
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Bengie, 15 Oct 2010 @ 5:23am

Serves them right
ROFL. I can't wait.
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Mike C. (profile), 15 Oct 2010 @ 5:56am

Theoretical progression of fun...
1) China/Asia takes a massive lead in filing patents
2) US companies get sued in East Texas and lose on a regular basis
3) US companies push to get the US patent system abolished or at least scaled back significantly to stem the losses
4) China/Asian countries put the *US* on their version of the 301 report for not being strong enough protectors of IP

/probably die laughing if that ever did happen.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2010 @ 6:00am

2 billion Chinese can patent a lot more than 300 million Americans.

IP idiots will suffer in America, when all the money is gone and the path to wealth is blocked by foreign IP, then I want to see idiots claim that IP is what made America great, those people obviously never read history in their lifes.
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Pickle Monger (profile), 15 Oct 2010 @ 6:32am

Somehow I don't think that East Texas is going to be very supportive of China's patents. ;-)
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Berenerd (profile), 15 Oct 2010 @ 6:46am

Re: New Reality TV Series?
you sir have won the interwebz in my opinion.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2010 @ 6:54am

Selective Enforcement
Do not forget that the Chinese are big believers in selective enforcement. The courts in China are under tight government control. So any Chinese court case involving a US company vs a well-connected Chinese company will always be a win for the Chinese company. US patent trolls can hurt US companies, but not Chinese companies. Manufacturing continues to flee to China. As the US economy goes down and the Chinese economy goes up, US influence worldwide will keep declining. A lot of people will have no objection to the US being taken down a peg or two. Have you noticed what has been happening lately, to the once-mighty US dollar?
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Hephaestus (profile), 15 Oct 2010 @ 7:12am

Re:
Thats I'm on a horse .... :)
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Hephaestus (profile), 15 Oct 2010 @ 7:22am

Re: Selective Enforcement
"Have you noticed what has been happening lately, to the once-mighty US dollar?"

Actually thats because of Ben Bernanke and the next quantitative easing. The US govt is going to print another trillion dollars.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2010 @ 8:21am

Re: Re: Selective Enforcement
Countries to business with each other in gold. Perhaps not internally, but externally a nation's money supply has to be backed by gold. When are we going to lean that there's a price to pay for printing money. We pay that price in the devaluation of the U.S. dollar compared to other countries. We call that price "inflation."
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PRMan, 15 Oct 2010 @ 8:36am

Re: Re: Re: Selective Enforcement
Actually, I used to think so. But the last time we printed billions, the world cheered the return of the US economy.
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PRMan, 15 Oct 2010 @ 8:37am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Selective Enforcement
That is, you really CAN just print money if you are the US.
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nasch (profile), 15 Oct 2010 @ 9:41am

Re: Re:
It's a cow. :-)
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nasch (profile), 15 Oct 2010 @ 9:45am

Re: Re: Re: Selective Enforcement
Countries to business with each other in gold. Perhaps not internally, but externally a nation's money supply has to be backed by gold.

Do you have a source for that? I'm pretty certain we don't have enough gold to back up the money we've borrowed from other countries (and even more certain we didn't before the gold price spike), but if you have a reference I'll read it.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2010 @ 9:45am

Re: Re: Re: Selective Enforcement
You are misinformed. Gold doesn't back s#$% anymore, not even paper back the money that is produced in a modern economy, most of it is just data in some database and countries issue bonds to back the promise that that money exist and will be paid.

Please refer to "fiat currency" to learn more.
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MrWilson, 15 Oct 2010 @ 10:20am

Re:
It's a good thing the US decided to diversify rather than rely mostly on an Intellectual Property economy. We have all that manufacturing to fall back on... Wait. Crap...
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2010 @ 2:10pm

Just wait until American companies, whose execs complained about China "not respecting intellectual property," start getting sued in East Texas for violating Huawei's patents.

But you know who will make a lot of money off those lawsuits? US lawyers (and the associated courts and enforcers)! See how that works? We still make money! and US lawyers don't have to worry too much about foreign competition because the practice of law is a protected market. It's a "can't lose" situation for the US legal system! The US is becoming a nation of lawyers, lawsuits and enforcers. So what if the Chinese get all the patents? We've got the lawyers and guns they'll need to enforce them. We don't plan to be in the production business in the future anyway.
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staff, 17 Oct 2010 @ 9:32am

gum
"taken over the lead as filing the most international patents of any company"

There are patents and then there are patents. The vast majority are narrow and have no or little impact. It sounds like they're doing what many large US companies do. When you lack quality you go after quantity. Unfortunately, that gums up the system for others who really do have something important.
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